Of lions and politicians...

Lions live in a female pride and the males are typically transient. The lioness prefer the male to stick around for a while though and here is why. If a new lion or bunch of lions take over the pride, they kill off the cubs.

Mayawati is doing something similar with the UP police. She is disposing all the SP appointed police cubs. This is bad for UP in case it happens to be a lawless state, but good if it happens to be a very corrupt state. You be the judge as to whether UP is more lawless or more corrupt.

Truth be told, police are recruited on the basis on both political connections and corruption. It would be worthwile watching the caste and religious balance of the new recruits in Mayawati's regime. That would be the true indicator of fairness.

Surprise in UP! Corrupt police!

Mayawati has sacked the police trainees as they paid money to get in. Hopefully the replacements will not have to pay money to her government cronies.

Getting money to get into the police force has been the norm in most of the Indian states, including Maharashtra. They have to do the dirty work for politicians and in return, nobody bothers them when they accept bribes or behave in criminal fashion when it suits them. Sacking some budding corrupt officers is a good start; hopefully the next batch won't have to pay again. There was probably a caste element too. Maybe she would have been better off being fair starting from the next batch. Going after the recruits before her time can start a vicious cycle every 5 years.