ulta pulta
Divide and rule
Jaspal Bhatti 

Mayawati gathered all her secretaries, ministers and party workers and asked the chief secretary to fetch four sticks. The Chief Secretary had probably forgotten the old tale taught in school that ‘unity is strength’. In the story, an old man asks his ever-fighting sons to bring him a few sticks. He then asks his sons to break a bundle of sticks but they fail to do so. He then has the sticks unbundled and again asks his sons to break one stick at a time. As the sticks are thin and fragile, they break easily. The old man thus successfully put across the idea of unity.

The chief secretary inadvertently brought a bundle of four solid sticks. Mayawati asked one of his ministers to break a stick. Obeying Behanji’s order immediately, he held the stick with both hands and tried to break it by hitting on his bent knee. He went down rolling on the floor with a shriek of pain, mumbling an epithet. Two other ministers and one principal secretary also tried to break the sticks but all had their knees broken and were unsuccessfully hiding their pain behind false smiles.

Mayawati thought the message of unity cannot be given through these foolishly chosen sticks, so she changed her philosophy, "Even if we divide, nobody will be able to break us.’ And then she declared to divide Uttar Pradesh in four parts.

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