BJP’s Jaya Prada banks on SP rival’s disparaging remarks, aimed at her, to help sway undecided, floating voters to her side

Like Rampur’s eponymous knives, the cleavages created by identity politics run deep in this constituency. Gender politics, however, don’t make the cut here, Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Azam Khan’s unseemly remarks about his BJP rival Jaya Prada notwithstanding.

Mr. Khan looms large in Rampur, with every election since the late 1980s having pivoted around him regardless of whether he was in the fray or not.

While the constituency is agog about the incident that spurred the Election Commission (EC) to impose a 72-hour restriction on campaigning by Mr. Khan, Sharmeena Begum and her daughter Fatima, both insist they “hadn’t heard” what exactly had been said. “We have heard that something was said, but I didn’t hear what it was exactly,” said Ms. Begum, as she paused amid her shopping chores, near the SP headquarters in the area; an assertion repeated by many women in the area. Between the claims of ignorance and SP workers’ contention that the remarks were actually intended for Ms. Jaya Prada’s mentor, Rajya Sabha MP Amar Singh, Mr. Khan seems to have weathered the storm.

Rampur, in northwestern Uttar Pradesh, has approximately 42% Muslim voters. When coupled with the SP’s support base of Yadavs (3.5%) and alliance partner Bahujan Samaj Party’s core constituency of Jatavs (about 8%), the election is seen as a cakewalk for Mr. Khan.

What his remarks against Ms. Jaya Prada and the EC’s strong censure have achieved, however, is to lend a fillip to the BJP’s supporters: of having temporarily prevailed over Mr. Khan.

Azam Khan on his way to filing his nomination earlier this month and, right, Jaya Prada before the start of her campaign. | Photo Credit: PTI, NISTULA HEBBAR

At Mr. Khan’s fortress like residence next to Rampur Jail, his son Abdullah Khan asserted to the press on Tuesday that his father had been targeted by the EC without “any notice”, possibly because he was a Muslim. Meanwhile, Mr. Khan spent his “silent time” holding closed door meetings with panchayat chiefs from across Rampur, shoring up support.

The EC’s curbs, in a town that Mr. Khan runs like a fiefdom, have also helped his campaign to posit a competing victimhood. Mohammad Farooq, ferrying campaign flags outside the SP office, quickly furnishes his permit issued by the EC. “Pehley hi permit dikhaa rahey hain, kya pataa aur kya paabandi lagadey EC (I’m furnishing the permit beforehand, who knows what other proscriptions the EC will impose),” he said.

Speaking to The Hindu, Ms. Jaya Prada, however, expressed confidence that Mr. Khan’s remarks would help sway undecided, floating voters.

“I am not someone who is very calculating, I work from my heart. Azam Khan is like a dictator here, the Hitler of Rampur; even when I was an MP, on an SP ticket, he wanted his writ to run here. This is a fight between me and Azam Khan,” she asserted. “I do not think that all Muslims will vote for Azam Khan, and those annoyed by him will think twice, and maybe shift; other communities in the constituency like Hindus, Sikhs, zari and patchwork workers may also get the incentive to move,” she said.

Some of that hope seemed to be vested with the Congress’s candidate from the seat, Sanjay Kapoor, who is being seen by both the SP-BSP alliance and the BJP as a spoiler. At the Congress’s campaign office in Rampur, Asim Khan, a general secretary of the Rashtriya Lok Dal who has quit the RLD to join the party, is accompanied by a roomful of party workers. Mr. Khan, who claims he had been jailed at least three times over agitations he had led against the previous SP government protesting the closure of Rampur’s famed timber businesses, has equal disdain for both the BJP and the SP’s candidate. The SP points to the Congress’s traditional upper caste vote base, contending that these are more likely to accrue to Mr. Kapoor rather than Ms. Jaya Prada.

For a one-sided contest, the EC’s action appears to have provided a workable narrative to the BJP, and given it at least a fleeting triumph over Mr. Khan on his home turf.