Bharatiya Janata Party MP Hema Malini’s Lok Sabha election campaign from Mathura constituency in Uttar Pradesh, which started on March 31, has inspired memes and jokes by the dozen in the past one week.
Hilarity ensured the day after the 70-year-old filmstar-politician hit the road and posted pictures of herself posing with a sickle and hay in hand.
Fodder for Twitter humourists continued to emerge over the next few days. There were more photos of Malini with farmers. There were photos of her appearing through the sun-roof of a Mercedes SUV and addressing crowds in Mathura’s villages with a man holding an umbrella over her head.
Photos of Malini driving a tractor even elicted a reaction from Jammu & Kashmir National Conference leader Omar Abdullah.
This image of her with clutching the arm of a baffled woman with a pile of firewood on her head attracted particular attention. Several people used it to point to the inefficiency of Narendra Modi’s Ujwala Yojna, to provide rural women with gas cylinders.
Video footage of the Bollywood diva demanding a bigger “jeep” spread like wildfire. But what took the cake was Malini nonchalantly admitting to an NDTV reporter on camera that her two careers weren’t quite so different. “I am an actress, I am a celebrity,” Malini explained. “I don’t find this environment in Mumbai, but I do in villages like these.”
Videos of Malini unable to be clear about what work she or the BJP did for the Mathura constituency did not do the Sholay star any favours. Shortly after Malini filed her election nomination papers in March, she was filmed telling CNN-News18, “I have done a lot of work for Mathura, but I don’t remember much.”
Here’s a look at other observations generated by Malini’s campaign.
The mandatory and expected Sholay reference followed.
As the jokes flew, the Kent Mineral RO brand of water purifiers, which Malini endorsed prominently on television till a few years back, was the object of hilarity too.
Some Twitter users compared the campaigns of Malini and the BJP’s Puri candidate Sambit Patra.