Bahu, Beta, Beti, Heir & Victim
The bahu-beta-beti approach is quite a hit in the villages. Here, the voter is expected to vote for the politician because s/he professes to belong to that village.

It is a different matter that the politician actually lives in a big city, quite far away from the village from which s/he is contesting.

But come election time, he makes a beeline for the village, riding atop a van or in an open jeep. S/he stretches out his/her well-manicured hands to the waiting villagers, who are no doubt thrilled to touch such soft ones.

In the heir approach, the politician projects herself/himself as the true successor of a particular political leader or dynasty.

There can be more than one heir in the contest at a given time, in which case each tries to project himself as the true heir.

This happens quite often because of the penchant of our political leaders in having more than one wife or family. All posters display the famous leader prominently, and carry photographs of the contesting politician beside him. All campaign speeches first eulogise the famous leader, and then go on to explain how the heir follows the same principles and style of functioning.

For example, Sonia Gandhi and her children always bring their illustrious forebears into every speech and poster. Both Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and her rival Janaki Ramachandran used to project themselves as MGR's true heirs.

The victim aims to win the sympathy of people. This approach sees the widow/daughter/son of a leader, who has died, projecting himself or herself as the victim of the dead family member's dedication to the people.

So the electorate owes it to her/him to elect her/him to power, so that the rightful political heritage can be reclaimed.

Campaign speeches are full of references to the martyred leader, the instances when s/he shared the political vision with the victim, premonitions about impending demise and such like.

From among the numerous examples, the prominent ones are the many members of the Rajiv Gandhi family, the family of Rajesh Pilot, NTR's son-in-law Chandrababu Naidu and NTR's second wife Lakshmi Parvathi.