After a 20-minute speech and an arrival delayed by an hour, she leaves as briskly as she came. Hopping into a wireless Ambassador car that drives her to the waiting chopper barely a few yards away.
On the stage that she has just abandoned, a man stands with a five-year-old girl who has been separated from her parents in the melee. Her mother eventually finds her and holds her up so that the child can bid Mayawati farewell. Around her, everyone else is doing the same.
Image: As her helicopter takes off, the faithful jostle to bid her goodbye.
Also see: Dalit queen, now Brahmin messiah
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