Yeh toh cocktail hai

On the morning of March 21, in the quiet residential locality of Saket in Meerut, house number 68A wears a festive look. The newly acquired headquarters of the Congress, about three-weeks-old now, is yet to be inaugurated. Scores of party workers huddle on the lawns. In the innermost room, acting president of district Congress committee, Manoj Tyagi, sits on a white couch, greeting party members and checking his phone. It is 11am. Nagma (best known for being the damsel in distress in Baaghi) is expected to make an entrance anytime now. “I think we have a strong contender,” says Tyagi. “And she has secular credentials,” — an important draw in the communally sensitive town of Meerut. In an interview, Nagma says, “I was born to a Hindu father and Muslim mother on Christmas day. You can’t get more secular than that.”

A week later, Nagma was groped by a youth while campaigning in the the city’s Jali Kothi area, best known for its musical instruments. Outraged, she slapped the young man and left the roadshow. Five days prior, Congress MLA Gajraj Singh had allegedly pulled her face close to his and planted one on her cheek at a rally in Hapur. The actress cut short her programme and walked away in a huff. The incident has since been hushed up and errant party members have been asked to toe the party line (to not kiss candidates) and to call the act a harmless one. On that day, Nagma’s attempt to file nomination papers went comically awry when a party member carrying her documents disappeared.

Two hours behind schedule, at 1pm, a vision in mustard yellow arrives at 68A to greet an unruly mob. A short press statement is issued, where she underscores her “secular credentials”. Then, Nagma proceeds to the district collectorate to file her nomination papers. Within minutes of her entrance, hundreds gather for a sighting, in what seems like a re-enactment of the time when a leopard had strayed into Meerut. Soon, the bag containing her documents goes missing. Harried Congress workers swing into action. For some unknown reason this journalist was mistaken for the errant party member and quickly shuffled into the room. A little later, Nagma is informed that her aide Salim Bharti is on his way with the bag. As a furious collectorate looks on, Nagma takes a few questions. While she is happy with Meerut’s response, are these fans or voters, I ask. “I would like it if the fans became voters and the voters became fans.”

Two years ago, she was in the running for a Rajya Sabha seat. Would she have preferred that to the rough politics of the heartland? “Yes, I would have preferred the RS seat. But what I can do for Meerut is give it a voice in parliament because I am a national figure,” she says.

It is close to 3pm; the deadline for filing the nomination is minutes away. Nagma turns to the octogenarian Congressman standing beside her. “ Yeh kya ho raha hai … Babuji,” she says, in true filmi style. Despite all efforts, her documents don’t make it in time. The vision in yellow brushes aside the goof-up and promises to be back the next morning.

Nagma has her work cut out in Meerut. While her roadshows have been popular, they have been confined to the city. Yet to address a public rally, Nagma has avoided serious questions, such as those on the Muzaffarnagar riots and Narendra Modi. Mahila Congress members have also remarked on the absence of women in her all-male team, even as she talks about “girl child welfare and women’s empowerment”.

However, in the short span of a few weeks, Nagma has identified local problems that are keenly felt by Meerut’s citizens. In her speeches, she has promised better linkage to Delhi and Ghaziabad, a High Court bench and a focus on making Meerut the country’s sports capital once again. “She has promised ‘Meerut ko Dilli bana denge’ ,” says Naeem, a long-time party supporter.

To Seema Mittal and her group of Mahila Congress workers, Nagma’s promises come as a breath of fresh air. “How many times have you been to Meerut?” Mittal asks me. “What do you think of the city?” she continues. A third-time visitor to Meerut, I cringe involuntarily before quickly rearranging my facial features. But it’s too late. “Disgusted is how we feel every day in this city,” she says.

Nagma’s roadshows in Meerut city have drawn an enthusiastic response. But, after the groping incident of March 28, Kamal Bhargav, a local journalist says she has grown wary of mobs. Taking a leaf out of the Hema Malini-school-of-campaigning, “she is not stepping out of her car anymore. She’s got herself bodyguards,” says Bhargav.

According to news polls, the Congress is moving steadily up the rankings. Yet, not all members of the party are convinced. “The Nagma effect is restricted to the city,” says Abhimanyu Tyagi, a 26-year-old blogger for the Congress Party. But Pandit Jayanarayan Sharma, the 89-year-old Congressman planning the campaign strategy is certain of her victory. “Hindu hai , Muslim bhi hai . Film star bhi hai . Nagma toh cocktail hai ,” he says. She however, wears the “glamour” tag lightly. “I didn’t want to remain an actress forever. I needed something serious and politics was a good bet,” she says.

How will she deal with the caste-driven politics of UP, I ask, she snaps back, “You don’t ask Modi these hard questions. What groundwork has he done for Varanasi? Where is the Modi wave? I know what I’m doing here.”

Indeed, posters of the sitting BJP MP Rajendra Agrawal or Modi are nowhere to be seen in Meerut. But neither is Nagma.

For the elections in Meerut this time, there are some obvious factors at work. “Anti-incumbency. (The sitting MP is a BJP candidate, the municipal body is BJP and so is the mayor.) There is Muzaffarnagar. But the real battle is about caste,” says Abhimanyu.

While the clans of the Hindu Tyagis, Jats — with the backing of RLD chief Chaudhury Ajit Singh — and other Hindu communities have promised their fealty to Congress, it is the Muslim votes the party needs to secure, currently split between the BSP and SP. The Congress candidate, however, has so far failed to make it to the eight jan sabhas organised in various villages of the Muslim-dominated Kithore region and a Samajwadi Party stronghold.

But for now the star-studded corridor of western UP — from Raj Babbar in Ghaziabad, Nagma in Meerut to Jaya Prada in Bijnore — is living up to its “glamorous” billing.

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