Actor-turned-politician Hema Malini on Sunday launched her campaign for re-election from Mathura by helping out agricultural labourers at a farm in her constituency.
Malini posted photos on Twitter of her harvesting wheat with labourers in the Govardhan Kshetra area. Malini, who was dressed in a saree, had a sickle in hand to harvest the wheat. Malini was also photographed carrying bundles of wheat crop.
Malini formally joined the BJP in 2004, though she had previously campaigned for the party. She was a member of the Rajya Sabha from 2003 to 2009 and from 2011 to 2012. Malini won her first Lok Sabha election in 2014, defeating then incumbent MP Jayant Chaudhary of the RLD by a huge margin of 3,30,743 votes. In 2019, Malini's main challenger will be Kunwar Narendra Singh of the RLD, a party with support among Jat farmers. Malini has already announced this will be her last election.
Malini was in the news for the wrong reasons in the last week of March. Malini had claimed Prime Minister Narendra Modi not returning to power would be “dangerous for the country” as only he had the “courage” to do what is right for India. "There is no other choice. Modiji has to come back. It will be dangerous for the country if someone else wins," Hema Malini told PTI in an interview.
Malini had previously been criticised for saying in an interview that she could not remember the various projects she had launched in Mathura as an MP. Malini claimed she had visited Mathura 250 times and had launched road works in the constituency.