New Delhi: At a time when strains are showing between her BSP and Congress, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has virtually suggested that she is a far bigger leader than Sonia Gandhi and would like to become the first Prime Minister from the oppressed class.

The BSP supremo in an autobiographical book has not taken Gandhi's name but said 'inheriting a political legacy' is a different thing and leading a 'social change' as a 'revolutionary mission' was a unique thing.

The nearly 1,000-page 'blue book' written in Hindi gives her side of the story of the developments between early 2006 and the recent UP assembly polls which Mayawati has described as the 'most difficult phase' for the BSP movement.

In the book, she also reveals that the BJP had promised her support in 2003 for a full five-year term if she had agreed for an alliance with the saffron party in the Lok Sabha polls, which it wanted to advance. The BJP also wanted 60 of the 80 seats in the state as part of the tie-up.

"This was the start of the deep conspiracies (against me)".

She says that there are many women in the country at present who were carrying out their political and social responsibilities, "but dispassionate observers will hardly find any example of a woman from an oppressed class leading a movement for self-respect of a huge section of society."

The BSP chief, in the book 'Mere Sangharshmay Jeevan Evam BSP Movement Ka Safarnama (Volume 3)' (My Struggles and the Journey of the BSP Movement), says at the outset that "it is my endeavour to give a Prime Minister to the country to initiate social change and economic freedom for the people."

Recalling her inclusion in Newsweek's global list of top eight women, Mayawati says it is very rare that people belonging to the lower strata of society have been eulogised.

She says that her character to confront fearlessly the conspiracies against her and taking them as challenges has helped her as also helped the movement grow.

Mayawati herself has said in the book that since she has written two volumes earlier, it is being talked among the people as BSP's 'Blue Book', which is priced at Rs 1,100.

Releasing the book at her 52nd birthday function yesterday, Mayawati said she would write one book every year and release it on her birthday to give a 'message' to party workers and sympathisers.

Her Principal Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh said the Chief Minister, despite her hectic schedule, devotes around four to five hours to writing and one to two hours to reading.

Noting that the period in which the book has been written was the 'most difficult phase' in the BSP movement, Mayawati says it was during this time that the party-founder Kanshi Ram became seriously ill and she took over the presidentship of the organisation amid grave challenges and difficulties.

She says detractors of the BSP lost no time in their attempts to put her in the dock after the illness of Kanshi Ram.

It was at this time the BJP, which was in power at the Centre, sought to involve her in the Taj Corridor case to take 'political revenge' and sought to demoralise her through 'constant media trial'.

Source : PTI