Ashmit's well-oiled PR machinery makes big noise..

Is Ashmit Patel's stay in the house result of a pre-planned strategy? It's the grand finale tomorrow and just one contestant will take away the trophy and the prize money. But of late, we have been hearing a lot of support and pleas to save Ashmit, one of the four finalists of Bigg Boss 4.

Well, to begin with, he wasn't popular enough to hold his own against Bhojpuri star Manoj Tiwari, but he did. Who is to be credited for it, Ashmit or his pre-planned strategies? His parents Asha and Amit Patel are the first ones to be appealing for votes as they say, "Please help our son Ashmit in his quest for righteousness. He is a fighter and has always stood for ethics with uprightness and honesty. In his hour of need, we feel he is lonely in Bigg Boss and needs your help." Well we doubt if they have seen all the episodes of Bigg Boss 4!

Parents appealing for their son sounds genuine but what about SMSes doing the rounds? One sms goes "Big size (Khali) v/s Big Mouth (Dolly) v/s Big Diplomacy (Shweta) v/s Big Heart (Ashmit). Make the right choice. Vote for selflessness." But, this is just one SMS for there are 35 different messages doing the rounds of our country that appeal for Ashmit. In Gujarat 'Save Apdo Gujarati bhai' campaign is full-on where Ashmit is being promoted as a Gujarati boy!

And one person who is going all out is his publicist Dale who says, "It's not just the SMS campaign that we are doing for Ashmit instead we are sending appeals through e-mails, Black Berry messenger, Twitter, Orkut and Facebook. We are manipulating votes rather influencing minds as I am a PR and this is a job but, it's not unethical to promote someone. A few other people like Manoj Tiwari are unethically buying votes in numbers and I am trying to track it. These things are happening behind closed doors hence I can't tell you now but, I want to catch them red-handed." Well, interestingly, Dale had handled Shilpa Shetty's publicity too when she participated in Big Brother. Let's see if he succeeds again manipulating votes rather 'influencing minds' this time in Ashmit's favour!