At a rally in the small town of Nuh, 78 kilometres (49 miles) south of New Delhi, several thousand low-caste Dalits, Muslims and the rural poor had been sitting on the ground for at least four hours, waiting in the baking heat.
When Mayawati Kumari, the "queen of the Dalits", finally came into land, they rushed to stand up and forced their way past security guards to watch her helicopter descend from the sky.
As it settled noisily on the flat, bare plain, its rotor blades blew clouds of gritty dust into the excited crowds and the canvas sun awnings flapped wildly in the breeze.
Mayawati, like all of India's prominent politicians, is on a hectic schedule, flying around the country from one rally to another, ahead of voting that starts on April 16.
Wherever the party leaders go, the format is much the same: a patch of open ground, a makeshift stage, sun shelter to protect the spectators -- and hours and hours of music, speeches and chanting to build up the atmosphere.
At Nuh, a poor farming area in the state of Haryana, the crowd had gathered since early morning, clogging the approaching roads with rickshaws, buses and carts decorated in the blue flags of Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
Men in simple white clothes filled much of the audience, while women in colourful saris cared for children in a reserved section off to one side.
"I am here to see Mayawati," said Sona, a 40-year-old Dalit woman. "I have seen her on television and she has promised that the lower castes will get more benefits and job opportunities."
Poor women in particular look to Mayawati, who has risen to be chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state after being born into a Dalit, or "untouchable", sub-caste of leatherworkers in 1956.
"She is like us and understands our problems. She knows how it is to be poor and we hope she will help us," said Somvati, an elderly female ragpicker suffering from cataracts.
Some spectators said transport to the rally was free and that they were there only out of curiosity and the chance of a day away from home, while others seemed certain that Mayawati could improve their lives.
"We are not paid to be here or given any free food," said Mosim Khan, 19, a truck driver from India's large and often poor Muslim minority.
"I will vote for the elephant (the BSP symbol), because Mayawati will bring us clean water, and sort out the railway line," he said.
As the waiting stretched into the heat of the day, local politicians gave lengthy warm-up performances attacking the incumbent Congress coalition and vowing that Mayawati would soon be prime minister.
Songs played on the loudspeaker sang "my queen, my sister, she is my life, she is my pride," and officials led chants of "she is new, she is determined, she is Mayawati".
Eventually she appeared on stage and delivered a 25-minute stump speech outlining her achievements as a chief minister and promising change for India's downtrodden masses.
Her rhetoric drew only an occasional splatter of applause, and soon the crowds were chatting among themselves despite party activists who tried to spark up further signs of enthusiasm.
After finishing her text, she left the stage quickly and returned to the helicopter.
Immediately the audience leapt back to life, pushing and shoving to get a good viewing position. The rotor blades revved into action and the queen of Dalits was borne up and away, out of the heat and the dust, and off to her next engagement.
