Rival leaders got Muslim clerics issue a ‘fatwa’ (decree) against Shabana Khatoon who is the TDP candidate from Vijayawada West assembly segment in this election. She is the daughter of MLA Jaleel Khan who stepped aside to make his daughter enter politics. The leader who complained against Shabana is also a woman named Mallika Begum who held a long-standing enmity with Jaleel Khan over local politics.

Mallika Begum complained to religious leaders that it was Jaleel Khan who got a fatwa issued against her when she contested in Assembly elections in 2009. Why doesn’t the same tradition and rule apply to Jaleel Khan’s daughter now? she asked. Giving his reactions, Jaleel Khan explained that there was a lot of change in people’s approach to those kinds of issues over the past ten years. He also pointed out that though the fatwa was issued at that time, Mallika Begum remained in the contest. So, she would have no moral standing now to question his daughter’s political entry.

But Mallika Begum’s anguish and grouse are that it was because of that fatwa only that she lost the election at that time. It was an opportunity lost forever for her. Finally, she made the first step towards taking her revenge against her rival.