Azam Khan and Jaya Prada when he didn't remind her of Khilji

Once Samajwadi Party's star candidate, Jaya Prada has hit out against senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan and compared him to Alauddin Khilji, the 13-14th century sultan of Delhi.

"When I was watching Padmaavat, Khilji's character reminded me of Azam Khan ji, how he had harassed me during elections when I was contesting," she told a reporter.

In Padmaavat, Alauddin Khilji was portrayed as a barbarian, bisexual Muslim conquerer capable of unimaginable cruelty.

Azam Khan and Jaya Prada, a Bollywood superstar, were not always at loggerheads. It was Khan who had brought Jaya to Rampur, from where she contested and won her Lok Sabha seat. She was a leader of the Telugu Desam Party till 2004. She won the Rampur seat by over 85,000 votes that year.

But once Jaya Prada moved to the Amar Singh camp, Azam Khan became a bitter and vocal critic of Jaya Prada as well.

As is his wont, Azam Khan then went on to humiliate her in choicest but civilised phrases, dipped in classical Urdu.



By 2009, the relations became so bitter that Azam Khan supporters openly campaigned against the party candidate, Jaya Prada.

So much so that some of them distributed vulgar photos and videos on compact discs, according to Jaya Prada.

"He used some wrong words and abuses. He may not be directly telling them but some of his stooges wave black flags and protest in my presence. It was very disturbing," she had told reporters in Rampur in 2009.

"Azam Khan has said some things [about me] to his party workers. I cannot repeat the words he used for me. As a lady I cannot utter them," she said.

Jaya Prada won the 2009 election but by a reduced margin of about 30,000 votes.