Hyderabad: Yesteryear heroine and former MP Jayaprada is facing tough competition in Rampur Lok Sabha constituency as Congress party has fielded former MLA from Bilaspur Sanjiv Kapur, while old rival Azam Khan is in the fray on Samajwadi Party (SP) ticket. The main competition is between Jayaprada and Azam Khan. Congress is expected to split Hindu votes that would favour Azam Khan this time, observe political analysts.

Earlier, Congress party fielded Muslim woman Noor Bhano, who had split minority votes and it impacted Azam Khan’s winning chances and helped Jayaprada win two times in Rampur Lok Sabha constituency in 2004 and 2009, but lost in 2014 elections.

BJP has been criticising the opposition parties as Congress and SP have joined hands to defeat Jayaprada. Just to defeat BJP in Rampur Lok Sabha constituency, Congress has fielded Sanjiv Kapoor instead of Noor Bhano, who belongs to local Nawab family. Congress and SP are working together to see Muslim votes are polled for Azam Khan to defeat Jayaprada of BJP, said a senior saffron party leader. However, this may not work in favour of Azam Khan as he got entire Muslim votes in 2004 and 2014 also, when Jayaprada won. This was despite Noor Bhano was in the fray,” maintained the BJP leader

It may be recalled that Azam Khan himself brought Jayaprada to Rampur constituency to field her against Noor Bhano in 2004 election and the Bollywood heroine won by over 85,000 votes. However later differences between Azam Khan and Jayaprada spurted as Amar Singh left SP. Amar Singh and Jayaprada left SP by 2014 and contested on Rashtriya Lokdal ticket and lost the polls. The election in Rampur is scheduled to be held on April 23.