Riots in London after Mayawati is arrested for bribing Madame Tussauds officials

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“I was fed up of erecting my own statues in India. I have heard a lot about the Tussauds guys. So I simply requested them to honour me with a wax statue. I don’t think there is any harm in that. If Amar Singh’s friend can have a statue here, then I too should have one!”

“The allegations of bribery are preposterous. Behenji doesn’t believe in giving money!”

In a shocking turn of events in London, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati was arrested, purportedly for bribing officials at Madame Tussauds. The Indian leader is at present under judicial custody at the Holloway Prison, meant for female adults, in central London. The development reportedly gave rise to riots in and around the metropolis yesterday night, and the police insist the two incidents are related. “There were riots after it was learnt that she had come to England to use our money to build statues. Just four people have been killed in the riots till now, as opposed to hundreds of families affected by her rule back in India,” said London’s Scotland Yard.

Ms. Mayawati was in England on a junket, ostensibly for promoting Dalit Rights. We gather she was supposed to meet the MD of Swiss Bank at the Town Hall, but she did a surreptitious change of plans and reached Madame Tussauds without her retinue. The guards at the wax museum didn’t recognise her initially.

One of the guards says, “Everything here was perfectly normal until we noticed a chubby woman sobbing in front of one of Lady Gaga’s statues. Going by her Afro-Asian looks, we thought of her as a suicide bomber, performing some sort of rituals. But before we could have even reacted she walked straight to the director’s office. We quickly informed the Museum police about her. We later saw them carry her out of the director’s cabin, in a police car. Hours later, we were told that the lady was a ruling politician from India.” After the arrest, a bomb disposal squad evacuated the museum and carried out a search operation. The Museum will remain closed for the public for the next two days.

The Metropolitan Police later issued a press statement: An Indian lady politician was arrested at 2 PM, from Madame Tussauds museum, for bribing the officials. A china-made twin-lock black briefcase containing 2000 Indian currency notes worth INR 2 million has also been recovered. The convict’s name is Mayawati, and she will be transported to the Holloway Prison for interrogation in the evening. 

Mayawati in her defence said, “I was fed up of erecting my own statues in India. I have heard a lot about the Tussauds guys. So I simply requested them to honour me with a wax statue. I don’t think there is any harm in that. If Amar Singh’s friend can have a statue here, then I too should have one! Moreover, I want to build my statues in England in revenge very soon, once I’m done with the revenge against upper castes in India.”

She denied the charges of bribing any of the officials and demanded her immediate release.

We tried to reach Vishav Kumar, Mayawati’s P.A., while he was trying to bail her out. “The allegations of bribery are preposterous. Behenji doesn’t believe in giving money!” When we asked him why she cried in front of Lady Gaga’s statue, he said, “There is nothing wrong in weeping if one feels like it. This is no offence. She cried because she mistook the lady’s statue as an uglier ugly form of herself.”

The reaction in New Delhi was ambivalent, to say the least. On one hand, Congress Secretary Rahul Gandhi criticised Mayawati’s rule in UP as: “For a state in the throes of illicit land acquisition, corruption and bribery—this will bring some relief. The people of UP need not consider themselves alone, I am with them.” On the other hand External Affairs Minister, S. M. Krishna said, “This is very unfortunate for the two nations. We hope this will not affect the cordial relations between New Delhi and London. We request the British Government to immediately release Ms. Mayawati as she enjoys diplomatic immunity. Our intelligence agencies R&AW and IB have informed us that ISI is clearly linked to this whole episode. We will therefore like to once again whine before demand US to cut down its foreign aid to Pakistan.”

It is however believed that London is not going to relent so easily. The English have reportedly taken umbrage to Mayawati’s unique plea before the magistrate, “Free me! I am ‘tanned’ Elizabeth.”

By Arun Maithani