LUCKNOW, DEC 5: With an eye on the upcoming general elections, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav has entrusted the controversial party MP and former bandit queen, Phoolan Devi, with the job of wooing the Thakur community in Uttar Pradesh.Phoolan, in a volte-face, has now become commiserate with widows of the carnage allegedly engineered by her in 1981 at Behmai in Kanpur Dehat. She is being tried for killing 22 persons in the massacre, 19 of whom were Thakurs.She sprung a surprise by driving down to the residence of the counsel for the Behmai widows, Vijay Narain Singh Senger, at Kanpur on Sunday and held consultations with him for around 30 minutes. Senger though refusing to withdraw the legal case against her unless she appeared in person in the court, is reported to have assured Phoolan to take her message to the Behmai widows.Yadav had launched a crusade against misuse of the SC/ST Act under BSP-BJP rule in Uttar Pradesh with an obvious eye on upper caste votes. The SP chief also used his party general secretary Amar Singh, who prided in flaunting his caste, to good effect to win over Thakurs in the State.His campaign, however, was jolted by the coup engineered by Chief Minister Kalyan Singh who managed to win over most of the Thakurs from Bahujan Samaj Party and Congress during mass-defection of MLAs from various parties to Bharatiya Janata Party on October 20.This is why Mulayam Singh has now chosen to rely on Phoolan for wooing Thakurs, who have been upset over the induction of the erstwhile bandit queen in SP especially because they perceive her to be anti-Thakur for her role in the Behmai massacre. The Behmai widows had even planned to ``expose'' Phoolan during her election campaign last year, by taking out a Vidhwa Rath but for the timely action of the Kanpur Dehat district administration.Phoolan, failing to muster enough courage to approach the Behmai widows directly, has apparently used Sengar to win them over. Sengar too has shown willingness to help her due to political compulsions. Senger reportedly has a distinct tilt for the Sangh Parivar but had been denied a party ticket for the Assembly or Parliamentary polls. However, Yadav has now coaxed him with an SP ticket for the Assembly polls, in turn for which ``he should ensure a patch up between Phoolan and the Behmai widows'', sources said.However, district SP leaders do not think it to be an expedient move to press Phoolan and Sengar into wooing the Thakurs for making way into the districts of Kanpur city and Dehat. ``This will irk the backward castes who have an open support for our party. Thakurs are dead against Phoolan,'' a senior SP leader of Kanpur said.
