BEING A “commoner” at election time will be backbreaking work. Ask Naveen Jindal. On Thursday, the Congress-turned-BJP chief, its Kurukshetra candidate, and an industrialist who declared mixed property along with his spouse of Rs 300 crore plus in 2019, was captured loading a sack of grain onto a truck.
Or Hema Malini. On April 12, the superbly groomed BJP Mathura candidate and actor, typically accused of being an “absentee MP”, was seen in a wheat discipline, holding a sickle in her hand, ostensibly harvesting the crop.
Over in Ghaziabad, Congress candidate Dolly Sharma cooked rotis on an earthen range whereas canvassing on April 11. It’s arduous to say if anybody is taken in, however an identical picture shoot in 2019 had definitely not harm Malini, who had gained by 2.93 lakh-vote margin.
Mathura votes on April 26, and there should be extra discipline journeys forward for the 75-year-old, whose attendance report in Parliament in her second time period (2019-2024) was all of 49%, among the many lowest.
Malini is going through Mukhesh Dhangar of the Congress, who a day earlier than her video had shared one in every of his accumulating straw, tying it right into a bundle and lifting it on his again. Dhangar’s video was accompanied by the textual content, “Jo neta zameen se juda hota hai, wahi kisan ka dukh samjhega. AC mein baithne wala kya janega kisan ki takleefen (Solely a down-to-earth chief understands the ache of a farmer. How can an individual used to dwelling in AC consolation pay attention to the farmer’s plight)?”
Dhangar, an MBA and a Congress state normal secretary, who was apparently a last-minute alternative for the seat, additionally challenged Malini to a joint, hour-long harvesting session. “I’m a farmer’s son, I understand how it really works. I’m a son of the soil from Braj Bhoomi… Hemaji is a pravasi (outsider), I’m a Brajwasi,” Dhangar advised The Indian Express.
His different posts embody movies of him bathing a buffalo whereas campaigning in villages of the Mant area, and sharing a meal with a farmer.
Together with the harvesting video, Hema Malini additionally posted on social media that she had visited many fields to work together with farmers, who beloved having her of their midst and insisted they pose along with her. She additionally claimed that she has been assembly farmers repeatedly over the previous 10 years she has been the Mathura MP.
Polling in Kurukshetra, together with the remainder of the 9 seats in Haryana, is due solely on Might 25. Nonetheless, it’s by no means too early when it’s a must to discover your ft in a brand new celebration like Jindal has to.
In her video making rotis posted on April 11, Dolly Sharma advised the digital camera, “Saara kaam aave hai mujhe… (I can do all kinds of work).” The publish with the video added: “Your MP is aware of tips on how to use each the chulha (oven) and the kalam (pen) very properly.”
June 4 will inform if voters agree, with Ghaziabad having completed polling on April 19.
The destiny of Virender Rawat, the Congress candidate from Haridwar in Uttarakhand, can be sealed. The entire of the state voted on April 19, with Rawat’s father and former chief minister Harish Rawat concentrating his energies on his son’s seat. Final time, the BJP had gained all of the 5 Uttarakhand Lok Sabha constituencies.
As a part of the status battle, Rawat Senior stepped in for a vegetable vendor to promote greens from his cart, and later the identical day, took cost of a fruit juice stall, working the handbook hand juicer – with the movies shared extensively.
A Congress chief described Harish Rawat’s posts as a approach “to indicate that he’s related with all walks of life”. That was greater than could possibly be stated about his personal celebration, which tried in useless to wean Rawat Senior away from Haridwar to additionally pitch in for different candidates.
For Ravi Kishan, an actor and Bhojpuri movie star, getting into the footwear of a tea vendor at a stall was maybe simpler. The sitting BJP MP, repeated from Gorakhpur, kicked off his marketing campaign on April 2 along with his model of chai pe charcha, shredding ginger and including it to boiling water.
Round a month-and-a-half to go for voting in Gorakhpur (due June 1), Kishan, a one-time MP, says within the video: “Immediately I’m making tea as a result of Modiji is successful 400 seats.” A fellow BJP employee quips: “Saansadji har kaam mein maahir hain (The MP is expert in every kind of labor).”
With sun shades hanging from his shirt and a gamchha (towel) round his shoulders to beat the warmth, Ravi Kishan provides in Bhojpuri dialect: “Jisne garibi dekhi hai, wohi issBharat ko chala sakta hai… 80% dehaat hai iss Bharat me. To yeh rajkumar log jo heera ka chamach leke paida hue hain, jo Italy mein padhe hain, Australia mein padhe hai, woh log ee Bharat ka dukh na samajh pahien (Just one who has confronted poverty can run this nation… 80% of the nation lives in villages. The princes who’re born with diamond spoons, studied in Italy and Australia, gained’t be capable to perceive India’s ache).”
The Italy and Australia references gave the impression to be directed at Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav. In Jharkhand’s Godda, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey has additionally taken the tea route, serving the beverage to celebration staff and the general public in kulhads (earthen pots) in Deoghar on April 2.
Dubey, who scalded many Opposition MPs within the outgoing Lok Sabha – notably the Trinamool Congress’s Mahua Moitra – says within the video of his serving tea: “Deoghar has 4 iconic tea stalls. At any time when I’m right here, I drink tea at one in every of these. Immediately I realised that I also needs to make the tea to learn the way they do it.”
Tea had particular significance for the BJP, he suggests. “You’ve seen {that a} chaiwala is our PM. In order a employee, we too are studying tips on how to make tea to grasp kis mehnat se aadmi desh ka Pradhan Mantri banta hai (the hassle one has to place in to develop into the PM).”
Godda votes on June 1, so Dubey ought to get sufficient apply.