She might not have won the elections, but had enough reasons to feel victorious. Independent candidate from South Delhi and beauty queen Ruby Yadav made a spectacular debut by garnering the second highest vote share of all Independents across the seven constituencies in the national Capital. The startling numbers pocketed by this Mrs India Queen gave enough reasons to candidates from the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to rethink on their poll strategies.
It was 8.30 am and Ruby came striding in at South Delhi’s Jijabai Industrial Training Institute — the counting centre for the constituency. Just like her campaigning days, her blonde mane accentuated with a pink suit didn’t fail to grab eyeballs on Friday. With 56,749 votes in her kitty, she looked a little less than happy. “I wanted to win, but people have made their choices. I know one thing for sure; people liked and accepted me when I went to their doorstep to campaign. I have fared well and have no regrets,” said Ruby, who plunged into politics from the glamour world ‘to practice social work’. She ended up having the maximum votes among all the 57 Independent candidates in Delhi after West Delhi’s Jarnail Singh who got 84,722 votes.
The 33-year-old Mrs India Queen, 2013, finished fourth leaving behind candidates of prominent parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Communist Party of India and the All India Trinamool Congress.
Giving a decent fight to Congress’s candidate and sitting MP Ramesh Kumar, she trailed after him by just 68,464 votes. When asked about the reason for her successful debut, Ruby explained unabashedly, “People voted for me because they did not have faith in any party. Although beauty lies within, people used to come out during my campaigns to see me and join my rallies.”