LUCKNOW: Having created and renamed 11 districts, besides creating one and renaming another, BSP supremo and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has again decided to create a new district, sources say. Although it seems no one is willing to go on record confirming Maya’s plan officially, it is a fact that Mayawati has been creating new districts to reduce the influence of her political rivals and challengers or renaming existing ones keeping in mind the caste, community majority, with special focus on her core support base of Dalits. If finally established, it will be the 73rd district in the state. The new district will include Kunda of Pratapgarh and Dalmau and Unchaar subdivisions of neighbouring Rai Bareli district. This time the target is Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiyya, the Independent MLA from Kunda tehsil of Pratapgarh district, who has been jailed for his alleged role in an attack on a BSP leader during the local body polls held recently. This is the second time Raja Bhaiyya was jailed under Mayawati regime. He had been jailed after he led over a dozen Independent MLAs in the revolt against Mayawati, during her last stint as the Chief Minister in 2004, which resulted in her resignation and the installation of Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav as the Chief Minister. Mulayam soon dropped POTA charges against Raja Bhaiyya. The 72nd district, created by Mayawati Government in 2010, was Chhatrapati Sahuji Maharaj Nagar, comprising Amethi and parts of Sultanpur district, represented in the Lok Sabha by AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi, and a large chunk of Rae Bareli district represented in the Lok Sabha by his mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi. During her first tenure as the Chief Minister in 1995, Mayawati carved out Udham Singh Nagar from the Terai areas of Nainital district of the undivided Uttar Pradesh. The district is now in Uttarakhand. Later, she upgraded Kannauj tehsil of Farrukhabad and Auriyya tehsil of Etawah as districts. Both are considered to be the core area of influence of the Samajwadi Party. She also carved out Hathras (Mahamaya Nagar) from Aligarh and made it a district: Hathras is the political base of former Chief Minister Kalyan Singh. Similarly, Bagpat tehsil of Meerut was made a new district in her bid to make inroads into the Jatland of the western Uttar Pradesh, dominated by Chaudhary Ajit Singh of the Rashtriya Lok Dal. MOVE DEBATABLE, BUT RECORD POSITIVE
Whenever in power, Mayawati creates and renames some districts of the state after the name of Dalit reformers, although most of these reformers have little association with the state. Her party leaders believe that it has been a motivating factor for the Dalit voters to gradually mobilise under her leadership. Records show that whenever she adopted such a strategy, the number of BSP seats have gone up. For example, Mayawati created Ambedkar Nagar out of Faizabad in June 1995. Earlier, out of five Assembly seats, the BSP had only two seats, Katehari and Akbarpur.