Hamari Sansad Sammelan: Session 4 – Beyond Lok Sabha battle- What’s on Jaya Prada’s mind?

Jaya Prada, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from the Rampur parliamentary seat, who witnessed a massive defeat against Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Azam Khan in this Lok Sabha Elections, will speak on what is in her mind beyond the fierce battle of politics, in a conversation with News Nation at session 4 of our prestigious Hamari Sansad Samemlan today, June 21. In the recently concluded General Elections 2019, Azam Khan secured 5,59,177 votes, while his nearest rival Jaya Prada bagged 4,49,180 of the total ballots cast.

During the high-voltage campaign of Lok Sabha Polls, spread over two months, the two leaders got engaged in a war of words, forcing the Election Commission to bar Azam Khan from campaigning or inviting scrutiny from his own party's leadership. Khan had attracted widespread ire for his sexist jibes against one-time colleague and actor-politician Jaya Prada.

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"People of Rampur, people of Uttar Pradesh and people of India, it took you 17 years to understand her reality. But I could recognise in 17 days that she wears khaki underwear," he had said, without naming her. Khan is facing an FIR for the remark.

Jaya Prada, who was inducted into the SP fold by Khan himself in 2004, earlier claimed that she was isolated in the party by Khan because of her popularity among Hindus and Muslims. In 2009, she accused Khan of circulating nude photos of her and was expelled from the party in 2010 on charges of supporting Amar Singh. Singh and Jaya formed a new party — the Rashtriya Lok Manch — in 2011, which failed to win any seats in the 2012 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.

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The actress-turned-politician contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Bijnor on a ticket from the Rashtriya Lok Dal, but lost. She entered politics in 1994, joining the Telugu Desam Party at the invitation of its founder NT Rama Rao. She was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1996, representing Andhra Pradesh. However, she quit the party, reportedly after her differences with Chandrababu Naidu.