Birthday Bash-Up ; an Engineer's Murder Throws Light On the Unorthodox Fundraising Methods of India's Fastest-Growing Political Party.

Summary

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Mayawati's birthday that falls on January 15 is celebrated in Uttar Pradesh as Aarthik Sahyog Diwas (financial assistance day). The celebrations are particularly elaborate when she is in power and quotas are fixed for the party's rank and file ministers, MPs, and lower level leaders to fill the coffers.

If cajoling fails, extortion does the needful.The stature of a party worker is fixed on the basis of the amount he brings in,says a senior BSP leader. The pre-birthday celebrations went awry on the night of December 23 when BSP MLA Shekhar Tiwari barged into the Gas Authority of India Limited guesthouse in Auraiya, about 250 km from Lucknow, and killed 50-year-old Manoj Gupta, an executive engineer with the state PWD who said he couldn't pay up.

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Birthday Bash-Up ; an Engineer's Murder Throws Light On the Unorthodox Fundraising Methods of India's Fastest-Growing Political Party.

My husband was under pressure from Tiwari to cough up a huge amount for Mayawati's birthday,said Shashi Gupta, wife of the deceased engineer. The MLA and his supporters beat him up and as...

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