Jaya Prada vs Azam Khan-Rampur on knife's edge

Immortalised by the Bollywood villains like Madan Puri and Pran, the 'Rampuria chaku' (knives of Rampur) may have lost their legendary status but the ongoing electoral battle between film actress turned politician Jaya Prada and firebrand Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Azam Khan has revived the past memories putting this Lok Sabha constituency on knife's edge.

Khan may not have anything to do with films but the verbal duel between the two one time close associates are nothing short of the melodramatic dialogues of the 'masala' Hindi movies.

And one could see Jaya Prada, the BJP nominee here, crying at election rallies over her ''humiliation'' urging the electorate to restore the dignity of a woman.

Not to be outdone, Azam Khan too talks about the ''great betrayal'' by someone (Jaya Prada), who had been brought to Rampur by him and taught lessons in politics.

The rivalry between Jaya Prada and Azam Khan, whose home town is Rampur, goes back over a decade. Khan persuaded Jaya, a close aide of former SP leader Amar Singh, to contest the 2004 LS polls from Rampur and helped her romp home. Their equations changed later and the two became bitter foes. They would often indulge in verbal duels, which crossed all limits at time. Jaya had once termed Khan as 'Alauddin Khilji' while Khan had called her ''nachne wali'' (dancer).

The rivalry still continues. The Election Commission (EC) had imposed a 72-hour ban on Khan for her ''khaki underwear'' remarks on Jaya Prada recently.

Although Jaya Prada is trying to play the 'sympathy card' by portraying herself as a victim, the presence of over 50 per cent Muslim voters in the constituency and the support of the BSP seem to be working in Khan's favour.

To make things difficult for the BJP, the Congress has fielded Sanjay Kapur, who will only eat into the BJP vote bank. ''There is no challenge to Azam Khan here,'' says Shafat Khan, a resident of Shahabad Gate locality here.

He said that the absence of Noor Bano, former Congress MP from here and a member of the Rampur royal family, would help Azam as there would not be any division in the Muslim votes.

In 2014 BJP's Nepal Singh had won from here by a small margin of 23 thousand votes. Congress and BSP nominees had then secured 1.56 lakh and 81 thousand votes respectively.

The constituency goes to polls on Tuesday.

Total Electorate- 16.68 lakh

2014 winner- Nepal Singh (BJP)

Runners up-Naseer Ahmed Khan (SP)