Of all her achievements, Mayawati would, expectedly, tried to play the ‘plan’ to split Uttar Pradesh into four parts - Purvanchal, Paschim Pradesh, Avadh Pradesh and Bundelkhand – the most.

There may be credible reasons to divide UP considering the apparent difficulty in governing a state as big as Uttar Pradesh – if UP would have been an independent county it would be world’s fifth largest in terms of population - but Mayawati also knows the appeal of the issue in the state where good governance has always been a utopian dream.

The ‘divide UP plan’ is Mayawati’s trump card and she knows it. But more importantly, she gains strength from the fact that opposition is finding it difficult to counter her on the issue.

The Dalit ki beti has cleverly put the ball in the Centre’s court hoping that the promise of a ‘new promised land’ would help her tide over the allegations of corruption and nonperformance being leveled against her by the opposition.