Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati, whose political raison d'etre has been the cause of Dalits, Thursday pledged to safeguard the interests of Brahmins if she returned to power in Uttar Pradesh.

The former chief minister was addressing a large rally of upper caste Brahmins organised for the first time by her party.

Terming this as "social engineering", Mayawati hoped "the new move would help to bridge the age-old Hindu social divide that has its roots in Hindu philosopher Manu's social hierarchy theory".

This unusual bonhomie between Mayawati and Brahmins could not have been better demonstrated, with a group of saffron-clad Hindu priests blowing conch shells amidst chants of "Har Har Mahadev", a traditional Hindu battle cry, to herald Mayawati's arrival on a high dais at the sprawling Ambedkar Maidan here.

Both the BSP leader and her key organiser Satish Misra, the party general secretary, made it a point to repeatedly emphasise that the party was never "anti-upper caste". 

They also sought to disown the party's one-time favourite slogan - "Tilak, Tarazu aur Talwar, inko maaro jute chaar" (Down with the Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas) - that was aimed at the higher castes.

Mayawati took the opportunity to strongly refute that she and her mentor and party founder Kanshi Ram had anything whatsoever to do with the slogan.

"Never in our life did I or Kanshi Ram ever utter this slogan. In fact it was systematically attributed to us by our political opponents who felt threatened by the BSP's rise," she said.

Misra provided a new flavour to the party's change of track by coining another slogan: "Ab tilak taga hai haathi par, to gaye baaki sab baisakhi par" (Now that the tilak signifying Brahmins is with the elephant denoting the BSP, all other political parties will have to take to crutches).

Even though Mayawati's claim of an attendance of about 200,000 at the rally was subject to debate, there was no denying that the gathering was far bigger than the last election rally addressed by then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who also has his own stature as the tallest of Brahmin leaders in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Mayawati left no stone unturned in trying to convince all that she was not anti-Brahmin.

"If I were anti-Brahmin, as my critics have always sought to portray me, why would I give key positions in my regime to so many Brahmins? Why would I have appointed Ramveer Upadhaya as a cabinet minister, Satish Misra as my government's advocate general, whom I also gave a berth in the Rajya Sabha? Or why would I give party tickets to so many other Brahmins both in the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections?" she asked.

"Let the elections come and you will see how much share in the seats I am willing to give to the upper castes."

In the same vein, Mayawati made it a point to illustrate that even her party icon and the father of the Indian constitution Bhim Rao Ambedkar was not anti-Brahmin.

"Ambedkar not only accepted a Brahmin surname given to him by a Brahmin teacher but also married a Brahmin."

Having been chief minister of Uttar Pradesh three times, Mayawati sought to assure the gathering that if Brahmins were to support her in a big way, the BSP would definitely return to power on its own.

"If we stood together, we would not depend on anybody else's support to form a government, as the BSP had to do on each of the three occasions in the past," she said, while predicting doom for her political adversary and current Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party.

"Earlier, we would say 'jitni jiski sankhya bhaari, utni uski bhagidaari' (the percentage of population would determine the share in governance) but our new slogan is 'jitni jiski tayyari, utni uski bhagidaari' (your preparation and performance in elections will determine your share in governance)."

Political analysts see the attempt as a pragmatic move.

With the BJP and Congress slipping and the ruling Samajwadi Party focussing on Yadavs, Thakurs and Muslims, it is the perfect time for the BSP to bring Brahmins into its fold, they said.