Bose states at the outset that his is not an "official" biography. Daughter of a junior government employee, Mayawati rebelled against her father’s bias in favour of his sons. She is portrayed here without papering over her warts and whims, whether it’s her penchant for transferring officials, her opportunism, her tolerance for colleagues with criminal records, her weakness for symbols of affluence and pomp, her lack of scruples, her mercurial temperament or her disdain for established procedures.
But Bose is more than just a grudging admirer of Mayawati, not just as head of the country’s most populous state on four occasions but as a canny political player who stitched together a rainbow coalition of the uppermost and lowermost social segments with a substantial section of the minority community and a portion of the middle castes thrown in. Bose feels that Mayawati has matured as an administrator while retaining her ability to surprise her opponents.
An Old Haunting 
Bibliofile 
