Mayawati paints Lucknow BSP blue on her birthday

The Uttar Pradesh capital was literally covered under a blue blanket - from blue lights to blue buntings - to mark the 54th birthday Friday of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president and state Chief Minister Mayawati.

Long strings of tiny blue lights were draped around each of the monuments erected by the Mayawati government in the name of different Dalit icons, including Babasaheb Ambedkar, Shahuji Maharaj, Narayan Guru, Ramaswamy Periyar, Jyotiba Phule and of course Kanshi Ram, the BSP founder and Mayawati's political mentor.

Mayawati's half a dozen statues erected at different places across the city were bedecked profusely with exquisite flowers, ordered specially from Delhi and other places.

Millions of tiny blue bulbs were used to lend the city a BSP blue hue. Officials were tight-lipped about how much the whole affair cost the state exchequer. But the city sure wore a new look with the new kind of illumination.

The decoration and illuminations on the birthday of "Behenji", as she is known to her followers, were as on a grander scale than the adornments on Independence Day or Republic Day.

While the chief minister confined herself to the four walls of her heavily guarded official residence, people thronged the memorials for a glimpse of the decorations.

Security was beefed up in and around each of the memorials since Thursday.