New Delhi: After becoming chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati once rebuffed her father, reminding him of his ''pro-son bias'', when he came to her for getting some work done in their native village.

The incident is recalled with a sense of pride and feeling of triumph over the patriarchal setup of her society in a voluminous book written by her.

Ms Mayawati narrates how she had to leave her house after her father, Prabhu Das, pressurised her to severties with her mentor, guide and BSP founder Kanshiram as he was against her joining politics.

Some controversies regarding her relationship with Mr Kanshiram also find mention in the book.

The book 'Mere Sangharshmay Jeevan aur Bahujan Movement ka Safarnama'(A travelogue of my struggle-ridden life and Bahujan Samaj Movement) was released recently on the occasion of her 50th birthday.

''Why do'nt you go to your sons who were supposed to carry forward your family name. Ask them to construct roads, set hospitals and schools and run buses,'' Ms Mayawati bluntly told her father when he came to her along with residents of her native village Badalpur, in Gautambuddha Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh bordering Delhi.

She recalls that people of Badalpur would say to her father that his daughter can do a lot for her village as had been done by Mr Mualyam Singh Yadav for his Saifai village. They would daily come to him and say that they had come to know through newspapers that his daughter had become ''super chief minister of Uttar Pradesh''. And one day, they prevailed upon him to accompany them to her, not knowing that the father would be referred back to his sons.

However, her curt reply was taken with magnanimity by Mr Das and he admitted without any hesitation that he was mistken in his notions and it was she not his sons who could get things done.

She says her father wanted to remarry after three daughters, including herself, were born to him. One of them later died. People around him would advise him to take a second wife to have a son who could carry forward the family name, she says in her book.

But, her grandfather Mangal Sen, ''who was a man of progressive outlook'', advised her father against the move, saying he should educate her daughters to bring good name to the family. Finally, her father had to drop the idea.

Ms Mayawati rues that her father spent a lot of money and care on the education and upbringing of his sons, leaving her and here sister to a government school. However, she exults in the fact that she overcame all odds to be what she is today.

She sees in her success, an assertion of women-power and of all other downtrodden sections of the society against the 'Manuwadi system,' which she terms as discriminatory against women and lower castes.

While tracing her rise to power, she devotes substantial space to her relations with Kanshiram.

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[ZESTCaste] Father once pressured me to sever ties with Kanshiram: Maya (News)

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