KATMANDU, Nepal — Nepal’s former first lady insisted that she was not a crook.

“If you read the newspapers, you’d think I was the most corrupt woman in Nepal,” said Hisila Yami, a Maoist leader and the wife of a former prime minister, Baburam Bhattarai.

Now that the Maoists have given up bank robbery, kidnapping and extortion, money is harder to come by, she acknowledged as she peeled off bills from a huge wad in her purse to give to campaign workers.

“People gave us money earlier out of fear, but they don’t do that now,” she said with a shrug. “We have to be appealing now. We have to be nice. We can’t afford to antagonize people now.”

So Ms. Yami was squinting at shadows recently as she held campaign gatherings in living rooms darkened by routine power failures. She insisted to those gathered about her feet that all the stories of hidden wealth and secret efforts to undermine her husband when he was in office were just vicious rumors.