Defiant India leader gets new rupee garland

Mayawati will receive more money garlands, supporters say (Photo: Krishan Saith)

Controversial Indian politician Mayawati has been given a second garland made entirely of money, this time worth 1.8m rupees ($39,000).

Her party says she will now be given money garlands wherever she goes.

The move follows criticism of Ms Mayawati for accepting a garland of 1,000-rupee notes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on Monday.

Ms Mayawati, who champions the cause of the poorest of the poor, is criticised for amassing vast personal wealth.

She is India's first woman Dalit (formerly "untouchable") chief minister and has a huge following among those at the bottom of the Hindu caste system.

She has spoken many times about her ambition to be prime minister of India but was dealt a setback in general elections last year.

'Defiant'

The latest garland was put around Ms Mayawati's neck at a meeting in the city of Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh state which she governs.

"We today [Wednesday] presented another garland of 1.8m rupees to the party supremo collected by party units in all 18 divisions in the state," state minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui told Reuters news agency.

"Wherever she goes, she will henceforth be greeted with garlands of notes and not with garlands of flowers," he was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India.

Photographs of Ms Mayawati receiving the garland on Wednesday were shown on television channels in India.

On Monday supporters gifted her a garland estimated to have cost between $400,000 and $2m.

Ms Mayawati's actions are a defiant response to her critics, the BBC's Geeta Pandey in Delhi says.

In the past few years, she has amassed massive personal wealth, throwing lavish birthday parties and accumulating diamond jewellery.

She has also been taken to court for commissioning massive statues of past Dalit icons and herself at great public expense.

Ms Mayawati's critics accuse her of wasting precious government funds in one of India's most backward states. Uttar Pradesh has soaring crime, poor health services and very high illiteracy rates.

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