She’ll need to work harder, though. “Celebrity or not, she’s on a weak wicket,” says local shopowner Gopal Krishna Gupta. Of the four main party candidates in Meerut—Shahid Manzoor of SP, Rajendra Aggarwal of BJP, Haji Shahid Ikhlaq of BSP and Hema Mehra of AAP—two are Muslim. And with the recent riots in Muzaffarnagar, elections will be fought on communal lines more than ever. “And don’t forget, Nagma is seen as Muslim by most of us,” says Gupta. “So even if she has a somewhat clean slate image, why should we vote for her knowing she will lose, as the Muslim votes will be heavily divided among the three Muslim candidates?” She’s also yet to find her feet within the local party unit. “Few Congress heavyweights are seen campaigning with her. She is yet to unite us all under one agenda and form a core group,” says a senior party member. “She still needs to befriend the right people,” feels local party worker Harikishen Verma, “such as popular Congress leader Dayanand Gupta, who was the other probable candidate and has a huge clout here.”