The “Dalit Queen” of India, the “untouchable” who rose to become leader of the country's most populous state, has set her sights firmly on the prime minister's office.

That was the message as Mayawati, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, celebrated her 52nd birthday yesterday with characteristic razzmatazz and ruthless self-promotion. The celebrations were not quite as lavish as in 2003, when she splurged on a party for 25,000 people in Lucknow, the state capital. This year, however, she pointedly marked her birthday - her first since winning a stunning election victory in May - with joint celebrations in Lucknow and Delhi, describing it as a “national event”.

She declared openly that she was now ready to move to the capital and transform her Bahujan Samaj party - until last year a local party representing Dalits - into a national force.

“My move to Delhi will depend on the preparedness of the party workers at the national level,” said Mayawati, who uses only one name. “If they urge me to go to the centre, I will fulfil their ambitions ... People say Uttar Pradesh is just a glimpse of what is going to unfold at the national level.”

Mayawati won last year's election by forging an unprecedented alliance with the state's Brahmins, the priestly caste who regard Dalits as unclean. She now hopes to do the same on a national level by mobilising India's 165million Dalits and other disenfranchised groups.

The festivities yesterday highlighted her emergence as one of India's most powerful politicians and a potential kingmaker in the next national election, which is due by May 2009 but is expected this year.

They were also a defiant personal statement from the daughter of a poor clerk and an illiterate housewife with nine children, who battled discrimination to study law and work as a schoolteacher until she entered politics.

The media frenzy that the celebrations generated contrasted with the lacklustre recent performance of Sonia Gandhi, the Congress Party leader, and her son and heir, Rahul.

As usual, Mayawati relished the attention as she arrived at a packed news conference in a five-star hotel in Delhi, dressed in a bright pink sari and chunky gold and diamond jewellery. Standing next to a giant portrait of herself, she cut a birthday cake and fed pieces to party leaders and relatives, who sang Happy Birthday as photographers scuffled to get the best shots. She also unveiled the latest instalment of her autobiography, My Story of Struggle, Volume 3. One chapter is entitled: “If People Call me a Super Chief Minister, what can I do?”. Earlier she laid the foundation stone of a £3.9 billion, 650-mile (1,000km) motorway across Uttar Pradesh, which she says will regenerate the state economy.

Supporters also showered her with millions of rupees in gifts - she had asked party legislators each to donate a minimum 300,000 rupees (£3,900).

Muhammad Jamil Akhtar, her media adviser, told The Times that the money was to fund her national campaign. “She's been chief minister, so national politics is the next step - and what is the top job in national politics?” he said. He compared her to Baroness Thatcher, saying that she slept four hours a night and was spending five days a week in Uttar Pradesh and two more campaigning elsewhere in India.

Critics dismiss Mayawati as a corrupt charlatan who plays on her Dalit roots to win lower-caste Indian votes while squandering millions of pounds in public funds. Four years ago she said that she was worth £1.5 million but before last year's election she declared assets worth £6.8 million, saying that the money came from supporters' donations.

She was implicated in a corruption scandal in 2003 over a plan to build a shopping mall beside the Taj Mahal. Scandals, however, seem only to boost her popularity and analysts now regard her as a shrewd tactician and a leading player in the coalition negotiations that will follow the national elections.

Many Congress leaders regard her as an alternative to the communist parties that have given the Congress-led coalition its parliamentary majority since the last election in 2004.

Her party has 19 seats in the 545-member lower house but analysts say that it could win 50-60 at the next election, making the “Dalit Queen” the kingmaker in Delhi.

Caste aside

— India’s 3,000-year-old Hindu caste system consists broadly of four groups: Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Sudra. Dalits are those outside this system and are considered beneath the lowest caste

— Traditionally, Dalits were forbidden to cast their shadows over caste members and had to sweep their own footsteps to remove contamination left by their presence. Dalits were forbidden from worshipping in temples or drawing water from the same wells as caste Hindus

— Caste discrimination has been illegal since Indian independence in 1947 Despite affirmative action to help Dalits to gain university places and government jobs, many Dalits remain impoverished and oppressed, especially in rural areas

— Literacy among Dalits stands at 31 per cent for men and 11 per cent for women, compared with the national average of 73 per cent for men and 48 per cent for women

— Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, has compared the condition of low-caste Hindus to that of black South Africans under apartheid

Sources: University of Madras; www.dalits.org; Times archives

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