ELEPHANTS’ RULE IN U.P.:
Elephant is the symbol of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which is ruling the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. In recent times the elephants displayed, in various ways, their might and underlined the fact that they are the most powerful species – at least in this state.
It started with two elephants losing control and going on a rampage, thereby creating a violent show (which carried on for more than 12 hours) at the busy highway connecting the nation’s capital Delhi to the state capital Lucknow.
The occasion was the marriage ceremony of the children of two members legislative council from the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party. To display their close alliance with the party, the politicians invited all the who’s who in the political circles. An interesting guest list included, apart from a fleet of politicians and ministers, at least three dozen horses and two dozen camels and elephants. And why not, especially when elephant is the symbol of the Bahujan Samaj Party!!!
Following several rounds of incessant gun firing (which is a status symbol in any function in this most backward but politically most volatile state) the animal lost its cool. It threw its Mahout on the ground and ran towards the highway trampling all the SUVs and MUVs parked at the road side. The vandalism by the elephants blocked the traffic for hours before wildlife experts could arrive at the site and control the situation.
Consequently, the Mayawati-led government in Uttar Pradesh state had to issue a notice banning the entry of "tamed wild animals" in densely populated areas. The government also issued directives for periodical medical check-ups of tamed animals and asked their owners to maintain proper medical records of their wards. (This must have made the animal lover politician/activist Maneka Gandhi a happy person.
If this could not satiate the rowdy nature of the elephants of Uttar Pradesh, news poured from different places of the animal damaging the crops worth millions of rupees this month.
The importance of the pachyderm was confirmed when it even intervened the judicial system of India. The Supreme Court, hearing a Public Interest Litigation, asked the Uttar Pradesh government to count how many statues of elephants have been erected in the state and the amount of money spent on the same. The bureaucrats and babus are busy these days counting the statues in over a dozen memorials and parks under construction in the state for last three years since Mayawati took over as Chief Minister.
Each memorial and park getting constructed by the government has several figurines of elephants – of course, that’s the symbol, the blue flag of the Bahujan Samaj Party proudly displays. One of the memorials even has even an elephant gallery having 60 stone carved elephants, each costing 6 million rupees.
The court also directed the Election Commission to see if this was violation of election code of conduct since elephant is the symbol of the ruling party.
After holding several brain storming sessions with colleagues and bureaucrats, S.C. Mishra, the Legal Cell Head of the party, could prepare a reply for the Apex court - ``The elephants statues in the parks and memorials cannot be termed as BSP’s election symbol. Reason; the trunk of the elephant in the BSP symbol is facing the ground whereas the trunk of those in parks and memorials is facing the sky, which is a welcome sign in Hindu culture. Similar elephants also adorn the building of North Block and South Block in New Delhi. So that ways it is not the party symbol in any ways.’’