India's "Dalit Queen," a low-caste firebrand in power in the country's most populous state since 2007, launched her re-election bid Wednesday vowing to continue working for the downtrodden. Crowds of supporters from India's Dalits, formerly "untouchables" or the lowest social class, cheered and waved as she swooped down in a helicopter before appearing on stage clutching her trademark leather handbag.
Mayawati, who uses one name, rules deeply impoverished Uttar Pradesh where she has helped elevate the status of the low castes, but is also accused of letting the state slide further into corruption and dysfunction.
She has also faced criticism for spending more than a billion dollars building giant statues of herself and her party symbol of an elephant, as well as memorials to past low-caste icons, in parks in the state capital Lucknow.
Uttar Pradesh, which goes to the polls next Wednesday to elect a new state assembly, has a population of 200 million - about the size of Brazil's - and some of the most entrenched poverty in the world.
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