The story of the February 2002 election is the remarkable performance of the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh. Till the exit polls actually showed the BSP doing well, no one had foreseen this kind of impressive show. There were many who confidently predicted that the Congress would fall short of its 1996 tally; there are others, though not many, who were insistent that the BJP itself would not get a three-digit tally. But none suggested that Mayawati would come close to the 100-seat mark.

The BSP success is a sobering experience for all the Delhi-centric pundits. In the last few years, these discourse- doctors have come to believe that they and their middle-class clients and consumers can control how the vast masses in this country thought about public issues.

Ms. Mayawati's political persona is a deliberate and total anti-thesis to the cozy world of these discourse-doctors and the much-touted ``articulate'' Ministers and leaders. She symbolises and practises everything they despise. She does not even care to put in the mandatory appearance on the television news-hours.

Why is it, then, that despite all the disapproval from the elitist news-makers and the equally elitist news-breakers, Ms. Mayawati could notch up such impressive numbers? Does it tell us something about her message which has eluded the smart and well-connected Delhi-centered pundit? Or, does it tell us something about the limits of the definitions and parameters defined in Delhi? Obviously, the underclasses in the hinterland have refused to subscribe to the values defined and manufactured in Delhi.

The phenomenon was observed first in Bihar; but Laloo Prasad Yadav's electoral performance was contemptuously attributed to the man's stranglehold over the underclasses. Now the underclasses in Uttar Pradesh too have thumbed their noses at the metropolitan moral-minders. Something is wrong with an arrangement if the masses refuse to believe Lal Kishen Advani's homilies on national security.

But none would want to pause to ask as to why, say, in, Behraich or Azamgarh, they should give Mr. Advani the time of the day. Life has always been a perpetually miserable, insecure and violent affair, even before ``September 11'' or ``December 13''.

A more sobering lesson has to be learnt by all those mainstream political parties which pride themselves on being above the casteist appeal. Ms. Mayawati coined this evocative slogan: Haati nahi, Ganesh hai, Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh hai. All indications suggest that she has had considerable success in garnering votes of the upper castes without losing her hold and appeal on the Dalits.

According to one calculation, as many as 32 upper caste candidates have won on the BSP symbol, besides 16 Muslims, 23 belonging to the Backward Classes, and the rest from the Dalit community.

Of course, everyone talks knowingly of Ms. Mayawati's hold over the Dalit vote-bank but no one wants to give her credit for her sustained leg-work in village after village, month after month, year after year that helped sustain the Dalit cadres.

For the political scientist and the election observer, the pertinent question is : why was it possible for Ms. Mayawati to reach out efficaciously to caste groups other than the Dalits, and why has Sonia Gandhi failed to carry conviction with the voters that they should restore their affection to the Congress which was now, once again, under the control of the Nehru-Gandhi family who cared for all sections of society?