Bikhre moti (Scattered pearls)

31.4 Heart Or Throne? (S2-part4)

Enrique fangirl in me woke up after years as this story reminded me of the above gem ❤️

This one's for my musketeers for their insightful reviews, especially on a different story like this! UshaVijay5, saxena_hgt, Reneeshah and happyy_me ✨.

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Khushi caressed the innocent, tiny faces of her 3-year-old kids, Veer and Vanshika, sleeping cuddling with each other. Today once again she couldn't make it before their bedtime. Their nanny whom they had brought with them from Kasauli had been the one taking care of them as Khushi busied herself in election campaign. With the polling dates announced now, only a month away, she was only expecting that her days would become busier. Meaning little to no time for her kids. They will have to get used to it for some time...

'Then why did you give birth to them? Why bring them into this world if you knew you have something else as your priority? Just to fulfil your wish to be a mother?' her conscience asked her. And she had no answer...

How she wished she had arnav with her at this time. She would have made him sit by her side, kept her head on his shoulder, and let his words soothe her. What would he say to her? He was good with words, she smiled. Wasn't that how she had fallen for him years ago...anyway. He would perhaps tell her she was being a pessimist, that this time too shall pass, that once the campaign was over, she would have more time for her children.

But alas. He was not here to tell her so.

He was busy planning his own election campaign.

She took a deep breath. This was no time to cry over what was not in her hands. She had to come up with her own strong strategies. One of which had always been her past record as the youngest chief minister with a clean image. Her hardworking and sincere image had earned her a lot of followers back then. But after she suddenly resigned from her post and left her state in Arvind Raizada's hands, a lot of people were hurt.

So, now she had to reverse that and gain their support back.

With the reopening of the investigation against Arvind, she had already managed to gain some of the trust back. Subsequently, the court also had granted permission for the case to be fast-tracked, which would likely benefit her further.

Now her next objective was to defeat her main opponents, Aman and Dayal. And to achieve this, she planned to announce the establishment of ten new schools in those areas of Delhi that were populated by underprivileged communities. This move would effectively deflate the bubble of Aman's narrative that she and her party opposed the construction of schools or supported their demolition.

.

.

Rani Mehra stood by the slightly ajar door to her grandkids' bedroom where khushi sat by her sleeping kids. Albeit working on her notepad. Rani smiled in satisfaction.

This was the reason she favored khushi. She saw her reflection in khushi. Same ambitious, similar dedication towards her goals!

Especially in the wake of the plethora of personal problems that seem to be surrounding her. Arnav had left her and not just that, he even formed a new party to stand opposite her. Although rani wasn't too worried about it. Her political experience told her, at most, his party would secure single-digit seats and eat some of the opposition party's votes. So, in a way, it would benefit khushi. She didn't realize she had in a way decoded her (illegitimate) son Arnav's thinking process. Albeit partially. This was surely one of the main motives of arnav's behind forming that party- it would divide the voters that would otherwise want to oppose khushi and instead of dayal or aman, they had a good option in the form of arnav to vote now. Resultantly, Aman wouldn't get more seats. But Arnav's second motive, she wouldn't guess...