It's three in the afternoon, time for the meeting with women of the Agarwal Samaj to begin, but the women have not yet arrived. And, neither has the candidate.

"If Smriti comes on time, it will be an insult to us. Hence the delay in her arrival," a worker explains.

Half an hour stretches into almost an hour but there is still no sign of the BJP candidate. Meanwhile, others start trickling in, some accompanied by children holding scraps of paper in their hands, possibly in the hope of getting the actress' autographs.

As an elderly woman garlands her, the bahu does not miss the opportunity to touch her feet and seek her blessings.