But lurking behind the feel-good spectacle is the reality that India’s elections are awash in illegal cash, serious violence and dirty tricks. Parliamentary candidates are supposed to limit campaign expenditures to about 7 million rupees, or about $116,000, but few comply. Vote buying is so common that the Indian Election Commission has begun monitoring regional airports for the arrival of private planes and helicopters, and the police have set up roadblocks throughout the country to look for large amounts of cash, gold and alcohol, the usual currencies to buy loyalty at the ballot box.

It is a gritty new world for Ms. Misra, 39, who studied at the London School of Economics and left a job in November at the United Nations Development Program. She has promised to fight corruption, build a high school for girls and give constituents better access to government services. She is passionate about improving the lives of women, whose status in India is particularly low.

She is not the only Indian who believes that even an honest, shoestring campaign can win.

“Despite all the payoffs, democracy in India does work,” said Anil Bairwal, a longtime election analyst. “There are times when a candidate outspends his opponent by leaps and bounds and still loses.”

But days spent with Ms. Misra on the campaign trail demonstrated the hurdles she faced at every turn, not the least was a vast gap between the hope and the reality of what India’s government could actually deliver. In multiple meetings, voters asked for interest-free loans and free weaving machines but left unmentioned the government’s inability to provide desperately needed sanitation and clean water.

Image Shefali Misra of the Aam Aadmi Party is running for office for the first time in India's elections. Credit... Nidhi Srivastava

To Ms. Misra’s great frustration, not a single woman appeared at any of her campaign rallies over two days. At one gathering, a man locked the door on several women silently peeking in through a crack from an adjoining kitchen. And while the Aam Aadmi Party eschews religious appeals, Ms. Misra found herself on her knees pleading for the support of a turbaned dwarf who bills himself as a religious leader and healer.