Luni/Osian (Jodhpur), Nov. 27: One is an 80-year-old widow who doesn’t speak at all. The other, younger, has a sore throat.

The real protagonists in this public-cum-family soap are an eloquent young daughter and a son with a beautiful wife. The memory of Bhanwari Devi, whose murder led to a political storm in the desert state in 2011, seems to have vanished into thin air.

Bhanwari Devi is not an election issue in this part of western Rajasthan. Keeping afloat the family name of the leaders accused of involvement in the crime is. Caste and community still rule here.

Former minister Mahipal Maderna and MLA Malkhan Singh Bishnoi, whose alleged involvement in the rape and murder of Dalit nurse Bhanwari Devi rocked the Ashok Gehlot government, are behind bars now. But the Congress has obliged their influential families by giving tickets to their kin — Mahipal’s wife Leela and Malkhan’s 80-year-old mother Amri Devi — for Sunday’s vote.

Insiders say the idea was to placate the Jats and the Bishnois as well as create a sympathy wave for the families.

Mahipal’s nonagenarian father Parasram Maderna, a Congressman and former chairperson of the Rajasthan Assembly, and the late Ram Singh Bishnoi, Malkhan’s father, both leaders of their communities, are held in high esteem in the region.

Now, the families’ future generation — Mahipal’s daughter Divya, 28, and Malkhan’s brother Parasram Bishnoi and his wife Kusum — are trying to blur the rape-and-murder taint.

They don’t talk about the incident but only of the crisis that has befallen their families and asks voters to remember the contribution of their families to the region’s development.

Amri Devi, Malkhan’s mother, sits quietly at election meetings in Khadra Randhir and Uchiara villages in her constituency, Luni, 34km from Jodhpur city. Daughter-in-law Kusum by her side, she lets her son Parasram take over the mike. He exhorts the villagers to support his mother in the name of his father, Ram Singh Bishnoi, who was a six-time MLA.

“We tried for a ticket for Parasram. Even Amri Devi wanted it to be given to her son,” said Ramrakh Bishnoi, Amri Devi’s chief polling agent. “But Gehlot thought otherwise, as the sympathy factor would work better in Amri Devi’s case.”

As of now, the plan appears to have worked.

“When an 80-year-old widow comes asking for votes in the name of her husband, we cannot ignore her. Bishnois have a soft corner for the late Ram Singh Bishnoi’s family,” said Hanuman Bishnoi, who runs a big grocery store.

Reminded about Bhanwari Devi, Kala Ram Devra, who belongs to the same caste as the murdered nurse, said: “She is gone and the accused, Malkhan, has been punished. What more can we ask for? We have forgotten the episode.”

Kusum, pradhan of Bilada where Bhanwari Devi was an auxiliary nurse, takes care of her octogenarian mother-in-law and follows her like a shadow during her trips around the constituency.

BJP Jogaram Patel, who belongs to the gypsy Rebari caste, also shies away from the Bhanwari episode. “Patel cannot afford to antagonise the 35,000 Jats and 36,000 Bishnois in the area,” said local resident Ashwini Vyas.

Only Vasundhara Raje, former BJP chief minister, takes Bhanwari Devi’s name in her speeches but sides with the Jats and Bishnois at the same time, saying Gehlot had put two of their ministers behind bars.

In Osian, 65km from Jodhpur city, Mahipal’s wife Leela Maderna, who is also the chairperson of Apex Bank and president of Jodhpur Cooperative Bank, talks about easy loans. Down with a sore throat, the 53-year-old Congress candidate lets her daughter Diyva speak.

“My father, who is my icon, has been implicated in the (Bhanwari) case,” Divya, who seems to be readying herself for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, said. “But the good point is, the case has made the emotional connect with our community — the Jats — stronger. All those who had drifted away now stand solid behind us. The case has brought the community closer.”

So close that the memory of a wronged woman has no space.