On April 14, the familiar Uttar Pradesh cocktail of low politics and high drama swirled its way into the headlines again. At the Pardafaash (literally: Remove the Veil) rally in Lucknow, Chief Minister Mayawati announced a whopping 136 criminal cases against her arch-rival, former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party. The cases largely related to Mulayam's alleged misuse of the chief minister's discretionary fund while in power in 1994.

FINGER POINTING: Mayawati at the April 14 rally

The public meeting had ostensibly been called to mark the birth anniversary of Bhimrao Ambedkar, India's first law minister and best-known Dalit political thinker. Instead it became the occasion to try out the cow belt's equivalent of shock and awe tactics. Much of Mayawati's speech was spent abusing Mulayam and his man Friday, the ubiquitous Amar Singh, SP general secretary.

"Mujhe pata chala hai, Amar Singh Mulayam Singh Yadav ko Mumbai mauj masti ke liye bhi le jata hai (I believe Amar Singh escorts Mulayam to Mumbai for pleasure)," went one Mayawati rocket. Rattled by the SP's release of two CDs-one has Mayawati asking BSP MPs and MLAs to divert development funds to party coffers and the other has her making allegedly derogatory remarks about Hindu deities-Mayawati hit back; and hard.

Co-opting the law into political battles is not new to her. In recent months, she has shackled Raghuraj Pratap Singh, an Independent MLA and minor Rajput leader, with the Prevention of Terrorism Act. As such, the 136 cases-firs have been lodged in 40 districts, beginning with the Hazratganj police station in central Lucknow-against Mulayam only follow a certain (il)logic.

Mayawati has accused him of misusing Rs 3.7 crore. She has also filed criminal cases for an alleged illegal recording of an internal BSP meeting in Ambedkar Nagar district. The BSP says the tapes were then doctored to "defame" Mayawati. The SP holds the tapes to be genuine and, in fact, chronicle a BSP meeting in Lucknow.

Most damaging are the cases charging Mulayam with misuse of the chief minister's discretionary fund. As per the rules, every year the Uttar Pradesh Assembly allocates a certain sum to the chief minister's discretionary fund. The chief minister is entitled to make disbursements as he likes provided certain key parameters are adhered to.

For instance, the chief minister may write a cheque of up to Rs 5,000 to a disabled person. A social or cultural body could be helped similarly. A needy family the earning member of which has died suddenly could be given Rs 20,000. A non-government educational institution could get up to Rs 1 lakh.

As chief minister in 1993-94, Mulayam admittedly violated these criteria. For instance, Rs 61 lakh was distributed among 10 district-level press clubs and two "journalists". Wooing the "friendly" press-allocating land to certain editors was another mechanism-was Mulayam's way of cultivating an influential constituency. When Dhani Ram Verma, then Assembly Speaker, wanted to take his son along to a Commonwealth parliamentary conference in Canada, Mulayam was generosity personified. He gave the Vermas Rs 2 lakh from the discretionary fund.

Mayawati has been quick to highlight such irregularities. She has ignored, however, that every recent chief minister in Uttar Pradesh has violated the discretionary fund rules. Mayawati herself is guilty.

When he became chief minister in 1997, Kalyan Singh (then in the BJP) prompted the Centre to institute a Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) inquiry into discretionary fund disbursements. Kalyan's target was Mayawati, his predecessor, who was duly indicted in the CAG report for the transfer of funds towards the grand Ambedkar Memorial in Lucknow.

FUND FURY: Mulayam and Amar Singh are targets; Vora (below) is collateral damage

Yet the CAG investigators spared none. Between 1991 and 1997, they said, Rs 33 crore had been disbursed from the discretionary fund by chief ministers and governors-when the state was under President's rule-and much of the money had been given away in violation of norms. More than half the sum-Rs 18 crore-had been disbursed by Mulayam. Pro rata estimates would therefore suggest he bent the rules most often.

Even so, consider that between 1993-94 and 1996-97, Rs 21 lakh was given as foreign travel "assistance" to 77 individuals. In this period, Mulayam and Mayawati both served as chief ministers, the BJP backed a BSP government and a Congress-appointed governor-Motilal Vora-took charge under President's rule. Not surprisingly, Mayawati has ordered an inquiry into Vora's disbursements as well.

There is a method to Mayawati's madness. By targeting Mulayam, leader of the state's OBCs, she is consolidating her Dalit supporters. While the upper castes may have been the historical oppressors, in contemporary rural Uttar Pradesh Dalits are directly threatened by the OBCs. OBC aggression and affluence are a post-1947, agriculture-induced phenomenon.

The SP may be an immediate target but Mayawati's parallel decimation of the BJP, which ironically supports her government, is very much on. When Rajnath Singh, BJP general secretary and himself a former Uttar Pradesh chief minister, criticised her recently, the lady stung back.

At a press conference in Delhi on April 17, she suggested Rajnath "look into his past". In humiliating this Rajput leader, Mayawati may be pushing a key BJP backing community into the SP's arms.

At the conference, she also brushed aside the idea of a state law curbing religious conversions, an issue close to saffron hearts. Earlier, at the Pardafaash rally, she warned that unless the shankaracharyas reformed Hinduism expeditiously, Dalits could convert to Buddhism in large numbers.

Many years ago, Margaret Thatcher, another famous woman politico, was likened to "an iron fist in a velvet glove". With Mayawati, the gloves are always off.