After Hema Malini had filed her nomination for office from Mathura, the BJP politician dropped images of her campaign run on social media - the 70-year-old's Twitter handle is, well, age defyingly @dreamgirlhema.

In a crisp gold and white sari she appeared to be harvesting crops with impoverished, perspiring villagers in the fields. No wonder social media tore into her bombastic, exorbitant arrival via helicopter into Uttar Pradesh where not only did she refuse to alight the car assigned to her on her arrival, she also insisted on a jeep to take her around. Her absurd campaign tricks - riding a tractor or logging firewood on her head - came under fire for their allusions to false modesty. After all, Malini is not a real, working farmer who struggles with bank loans, depleting water tables and an unreliable monsoon - since 2013, over 13,000 farmers have committed suicide each year.