Rakhi Sawant might have had a makeover but that’s just on the exterior. The theatrics that run deep inside her continue to hold sway in her life, be it in cinema or in politics. As an independent candidate from North West Mumbai, Rakhi is putting her best foot forward. In her parrot green waist coat, green kurta and matching green topi, Rakhi with folded hands and a smile is a picture of poise and grace. The striking green chilly earrings add to the get up but not without puncturing the bubble bringing back the memories of good old Rakhi. “I have got very few days to campaign. Which is why I am wearing these chilly earrings so that my election symbol (though not yet approved by the Election Commission) registers in the minds of the electorate,” says Rakhi.
She claimed to be the daughter of BJP but when nothing materialised after her much publicised Namo Chai with BJP President Rajnath Singh, Rakhi Sawant decided to go it alone and floated Rashtriya Aam Party. She wanted to contest from Mumbai but the BJP, the actor claims, was offering her a ticket from a remote place in West Bengal. Before the BJP’s, she is Mumbai ki beti and this is where she wants to fulfil her duties. So that’s where she is every day 4 to 7 p.m. roaming the streets of Jogeshwari, Versova, Dindoshi, Goregaon, Jogeshwari East, Andheri West and Andheri West, pleading with the electorate to give a woman a chance. “ Mahila dhoka nahi deti. Ek baar mauka dijiye .”
At times, she steps out of her open tempos and cars to personally greet the vendors, women and passers-by to assure them good roads, water and safety, which she says the sitting Congress MP Gurudas Kamat couldn’t deliver. “In Nehru Nagar, I was surrounded by women, who came to me crying that how a local politician has got a tap locked. I cried listening to their stories so I went with them to the spot and broke the lock. In Dindoshi, women told me how their alcoholic husbands have sold their shanties so many times over. So I am meeting these people, going to government hospitals and asking them to give me a chance,” explains Rakhi.
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Women uplift, sanitation and police reforms are some of the other issues on her agenda. Pitted against other Bollywood personalities and heavyweights — Gurudas Kamat (Congress), Gajanan Kirtikar (Shiv Sena) Mahesh Manjrekar (MNS), Mayank Gandhi (AAP), Kamal Rashid Khan (Samajwadi Party), Rakhi Sawant perhaps knows she stands a feeble chance, yet she is going all out to woo the voters not with a loud jhatka but with a subtle twist. So even as she mouths utter filmy lines —