Nobody, even the Bahujan Samaj Party leader, Mayawati, is talking about him. But the man in question is as much disturbed by the UP results as the Samajwadi Party leader, Mulayam Singh and Bharatiya Janata Party chief, Rajnath Singh. The person in question is none else but the Union fertilizer minister, Ram Bilas Paswan.

The BSP win will not only end one and a half decade long political uncertainty in Uttar Pradesh but it will also open a new chapter in the Dalit politics of the country. Paswan had lost his bargaining position as the Dalit leader as Mayawati has for the first time won it all alone. The BSP chief is so over-confident of the Dalit leadership that she never even speaks of Ram Bilas Paswan as a challenger.

It is for the first time that Mayawati went without (now Late) Kanshi Ram, who founded the BSP more than two decades ago. Though Dalits have a sizeable population in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and many other states there is no one left as towering a personality as Mayawati. Now she is in position to dictate her terms.

Uttar Pradesh has 22 per cent Dalits and even a small support from the Upper Castes, Muslims and Extreme Backward Castes is enough to ensure her victory. In the last two decades under the guidance of Kanshi Ram, she succeeded in carving out her own support base. She played her political cards very astutely and built the party right from the top to the booth level, where the management is very essential on the day of polling.

Born in Delhi on January 15, 1956 apparently she has no real root in Uttar Pradesh yet she managed to emerge as the undisputed leader of the Dalits in that state and can win from anywhere there. In fact her political training started in entirely different way. She was picked by the party supreme leader, Kanshi Ram, while she was preparing for the Civil Service examination and working as a teacher in Delhi.

Unlike the Dalit leaders of Maharashtra, who tried to cash in on the personality of Ambedkar or Ram Bilas Paswan, who shot into national fame because of the 1974 JP-movement and the subsequent 1977 anti-Indira wave Kanshi Ram and Mayawati worked at the grassroots level among Dalits. This they achieved notwithstanding their disadvantage of being from outside the state. Kanshi Ram was from Punjab.

On the other hand Ram Bilas Paswan initially never project himself as the Dalit leader in the manner Mayawati or Kanshi Ram did throughout their career. True Ram Bilas formed Dalit Sena later he often used his Dalit card only when in neck deep in trouble.

Though Paswan and the leaders of Republican Party of Maharashtra had the advantage of being local in their respective states they all failed to match the personality of Kanshi Ram and Mayawati. The duo very tactfully filled the vacuum of Dalit leadership and unlike Paswan never used the Dalit card when in a dire strait.

However, Mayawati has certain advantage. Unlike in Bihar, where Dalits form just over 15 percent of population, they are economically stronger in Uttar Pradesh. They owe this to the First War of Independence whose centenary coincided with BSP's thumping victory. In a way Dalits sided with the British in that War as they wanted to get rid of the local Kings, Maharajas and Zamindars, who were considered as the exploiters.

Besides, the arrival of British in Uttar Pradesh and their subsequent capture of Delhi led to the emergence of cantonment towns in several cities like Meerut (where actually the 1857 revolt first broke), Kanpur, Agra, Allahabad and Lucknow. The military camps in this cities gave a big boost to the boot and belt industries in most of these cities as the army personnel need them. The Ravidas (cobblers), the caste to which Mayawati belongs, one way or the other got benefited by this development. In West UP they are called Jatavs.

Maharashtra, where too Dalits form a sizeable percentage, had a slightly different story. There the Dalits, especially Mahars, the caste to which Ambedkar belonged, got recruited in army in a large number. But the Dalits of the united Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and to some extent even Bengal were not so lucky.

Mayawati fully capitalized on this advantage to emerge as the leader of the Dalits. In the era where Dalit and backward class assertion is at its peak the national parties like the BJP and the Congress stand nowhere to gain. While Congress is too insignificant a force, yet its effort to make some sorts of revival has been dashed.

The UP result will not only change the Dalit politics, but may also have an impact on the political equation at the national level. The twice bitten Congress may now re-think the whole Dalit strategy as the 2009 parliamentary election is not far away. The party has gained nothing--in fact lost everything--by aligning with Ram Bilas Paswan in the two assembly elections in 2005. The Lok Janshakti Party leader has already antagonized the railway minister, Lalu Yadav, and the seriously let down Sonia Gandhi. He had lost his bargaining position. He had all throughout been opposing the Congress-BSP alliance. But now hardly anyone in the Congress is in a mood to lend his/her ear to him.