Waving regally, with fingers and thumb touching, Mayawati greets 100,000 of India's poorest people, and they wave back. Smiling sweetly, the 53-year-old chief minister of Uttar Pradesh (up) plonks her handbag, then herself, onto a blue armchair facing the crowd, and awaits presents. The local candidate for her Bahujan Samaj Party (bsp) proffers an elephant-the bsp's electoral symbol-made in silver. Then Miss Mayawati stands and urges the people of Mirzapur, a district of eastern up that participated in the first round of India's month-long general election on April 16th, to vote for the elephant. "up is ours, now we are going for Delhi."
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