For the ruling Samajwadi Party Bhabhiji Dimple Yadav is their leader number one. Known for her simplicity and grace, Chief Minitser Akhilesh Yadav’s wife is all set to win the hearts of the people of her Kannauj parliamentary constituency.
Even the poll material selling outside the SP office are brimming with Dimple’s photos. Needless to say if BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s poll items are reaching an all time high, in the SP it is Bhabhiji pictures and other poll material which is much in demand.
“Bhabhiji is second only to Modi when it comes to selling poll material. We have photographs, posters, handkerchiefs and coffee mugs with the Samajwadi flag and Dimple’s photographs. Candidates are placing orders for more and we cannot cope with the demand,” says Ravish Agarwal, who runs a Samajwadi stall in front of the Samajwadi Party state headquarters here.
However, he explains that he was not displaying Dimple’s pictures in the stalls though he has it all stocked up. This is mainly due to security reasons so I am distributing it only to the candidates who are asking me for it, he explained.
Framed photographs of Dimple Yadav, meanwhile, are available at a price that ranges between Rs 200 -Rs 650, depending on the size. A packet of six handkerchiefs with Dimple’s photo printed on it is available for Rs 140 and the coffee mugs are priced at Rs 150 each. Balloons with Dimple’s photograph are also a fast selling item.
“The party has no other woman leader who can match Bhabhiji’s stature. Her photographs are very attractive and the womenfolk in my constituency love her because she exudes the warmth of a homemaker. I am using her photograph extensively in my campaign and my wife distributes her handkerchief when she goes campaign among the women,” says a SP candidate from eastern UP.
Dimple Yadav has never campaigned for the party though she has been occasionally seen on the dais with her husband during public functions. Party leaders are hopeful that she would takes on a more active role in these elections but there is no word from the ‘bahu’ of the Samajwadi family as yet.
Dimple Yadav, it may be recalled, contested her first by-election from Ferozabad in 2009 but lost to Raj Babbar of Congress. Thereafter, in 2012, she got elected unopposed from Kannauj, a seat that was vacated by her husband Akhilesh Yadav after he became chief minister of UP.