Ajit Singh. File photoJayaprada stirs lot of interest in politics. The glamourous southern star who shined in films of five languages,has again switched parties. Since the last ten years Uttar Pradesh has been her political base and now she has joined the Rashtriya Lok Dal led by Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh. This is the third party in her career. After starting with Telugu Desham, which sent her to Rajya Sabha, Jayaprada was twice elected on Samajwadi Party ticket from Muslim dominated Rampur in Uttar Pradesh. Ajit Singh proposes to field her from Bijnore in western Uttar Pradesh, which is considered to be the home turf of Bahujan Samaj party chief Mayawati.
She was an active member of both houses of parliament and had also campaigned for Samajwadi Party, until she was expelled in 2010, along with her mentor Amar Singh, who was the powerful general secretary of Mulayam Singh Yadav's party. There were overtures from the Congress asking Jayaprada to contest from Moradabad, neighhbouring Rampur. Jayaprada had earlier defeated Congress stalwart Begum Noor Bano, of the erstwhile royal family of Rampur, and she was told Moradabad would be given, as cricketer turned politician Mohammed Azharuddin was shifting to West Bengal from Moradabad. But Jayaprada found strong resistance from Noor Bano. The two ladies had never reconciled. Noor Bano wanted her son to be given Rampur, while the 75 year old Noor Bano coveted Moradabad. Finally, the Congress high command granted her both wishes, and Jayaprada was left stranded.
That is when Amar Singh negotiated with old friend Ajit Singh for their entry into Rashtriya Lok Dal. Ajit Singh was upset with the communal violence in Muzaffarnagar last year which had pitted Jats and Muslims against each other, while both formed part of RLD's vote bank in western Uttar Pradesh, since the time of Ajit Singh's father and former prime minister Charan Singh. Ajit Singh wanted a dash of glamour to neutralise negative trends in his fiefdom and he admitted Jayaprada, on the condition she would campaign extensively among Muslim voters in Baghpat, Mathura, Muzaffarnagar and other traditional Jat-Muslim areas of RLD. The deal was agreeable, as the other alternative to Jayaprada was an offer from Telugu Desham president Chandrababu Naidu to return and contest from a seat in Seemandhra region.
Tailpiece: Interestingly in Mathura, Jayaprada would have to campaign against another southerner who made it very big in Hindi cinema. The BJP is considering fielding dream girl Hema Malini from Mathura. In nearby Meerut, the Congress candidate is Nagma, a northern actress who made it big in southern cinema.
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