Either it is 'Jan Sabha' (public meetings) or road show, she gets attention being an actress who visited there five years ago seeking vote for RLD's Jayant Chaudhary (sitting MP and her rival this time) or a 'KENTwali' (due to her appearance in KENT water purifier advertisement) but gets applause only when she takes NDA prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's name.
"Aap Modiji ko PM bana chahte hain (do you want to make Modi the Prime Minister)"...the crowd cheers hearing Modi's name... "to aapko mujhe to jitana hi hoga (then you have to let me win)", she said while addressing a public meeting at Sahar.
She repeats this meeting after meeting in Mathura villages. Her campaign trail this week, covering villages including Sakhi, Arvai, Ranvari, Chata and many others along Mathura-Delhi highway also showed how her limited knowledge of this area and issues made crowd unconcerned till she took Modi's name or said something in her typical accent seemingly reminding the gatherings of her role as 'Basanti' in Sholay.
A section of crowd can be heard calling her 'Basanti' and 'tangewali' (of Sholay fame), but this limited to ones who must be in their 40s' or 50s'. The younger ones appear to know her more as 'KENTwali' or as the Bollywood actor Dharmender's wife or as Esha Deol's mother.
Sensing crowd's wish, the BJP is learnt have made plan for Esha's presence during campaign. Local BJP leaders also don't rule out Dharmender's presence during last couple of days of the campaign which will end on April 22.
Desperate to shed her 'non-serious' image amid concerns that she being an outsider may not be able to work for the constituency, local BJP leaders during those public meetings never forget to announce her as the one who will be a minister in Modi's government -- something which gets big applause from the crowd even before the Bollywood actor turns up for the meeting.
If you ask villagers in this Jat-dominated constituency whether they would prefer the RLD candidate Jayant Chaudhary, a Jat leader and sitting MP, over Hema Malini, they would tell you that she being Dharmendra's wife is also a 'Jatni'.
It may be difficult to predict whether she would get Jat votes or not, but her candidature indicated the BJP's calculation to pit her against the Jat strongman Jayant in Mathura where the UPA government's decision to provide reservation to Jats may turn the caste in the Congress ally RLD's favour.
Whatever the euphoria, if any, around Hema Malini's persona, it may not be a cakewalk for the actor. She is pitted in a three-cornered fight against Jayant and BSP's Pandit Yogesh Diwivedi in the constituencies where caste factor always plays an important role.
Though BJP hopes to ride on Modi's wave which can primarily be felt in Mathura town and nearby villages, the RLD may be banking on Jat votes while the BSP must be eying for both dalit and brahmin votes.
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