"What's wrong with wanting to move up the ladder?" Priyanka Chaturvedi is chatting with us at her Goregaon West home, looking very much the driven corporate rofessional she once used to be. The only thing close to 'neta' on her person are the beads on her hands and rings on her fingers. The rings, she says, come from her mother, a God-fearing woman, who for the last eight years has been making Tuesday visits to Siddihivinayak. One Rudraksh mala is from the Shankaracharya of Dwaraka, and an orange thread on the right hand was tied when she joined the Shiv Sena last week. The white bead string was given to her at the Nashik kumbh to keep her calm. "I am not sure how much it has helped," she says.

In the last one week, the 40-year-old has been accused of being selfish, hypocritical and, perhaps worse, inconsequential.