Vidya Subrahmaniam, Rampur

The Telugu actress is popular but her contest against the Congress’ Begum is marked by intrigue and irony

At Jayaprada Nahata’s luxury suite in Rampur’s best hotel, India’s diversity is in spectacular display. The Samajwadi Party candidate (and sitting Lok Sabha MP) is praying at a makeshift temple mounted on a platform in the dining room. Her aarti plate circles the entire range of gods in the Hindu divine pantheon.

Huddled together in the living area are the city’s top Maulvis, resplendent in their long robes, flowing beards and skull caps. Their conversation, in elegant heartland Urdu, wafts into the dining space, mingling with the Telugu spoken by Ms. Jayaprada and her family of brother, sister-in-law, cousins, nieces and nephews. The politician-actor slips from Telugu to Hindi-Urdu and back to Telugu as she flits between the two portions.

When she speaks to me, it is in English, and naturally, I am bewildered by the variety on offer. Ms. Jayaprada sums up the action rather fetchingly. “A.P. + U.P. = J.P. (Andhra Pradesh + Uttar Pradesh = Jayaprada),” she tells me, and then elaborates, “From Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh to Rampur in western U.P., it has been long journey.”

Indeed so. Over a period of 30-odd years, she has acted in 300 or so multi-lingual films, taken the long leap from the Telugu Desam Party to the Samajwadi Party, and, today, as she proudly admits, continues to straddle the worlds of politics and cinema: “Why should I give up cinema?”

The gruelling work and the multitasking have all been to the good because Rampur is no ordinary constituency. A little over half its population is Muslim, the highest in U.P. and, as its residents unfailingly emphasise, this makes every election here a potentially inflammable “H-M” (Hindu-Muslim) election. When Ms. Jayaprada came here in 2004, she spoke “Bombaiya (Mumbai) Hindi” to the complete horror of Rampuri Muslims. It did not help that her main opponent, the Congress party’s Begum Noor Bano, belonged to the royal family of Rampur. But Ms. Jayaprada had oodles of star appeal, and vast amounts of grit and determination, and she pulled off a stunning victory.

Today the “outsider from the deep South” speaks fluent Hindustani, and is as much at ease offering the chadar in a dargah as she is when praying in a temple with the Hindu community. As she hits the campaign trail, she tells me, “I’m so much at home here, I’m more a local than Noor Bano.”

The star politician’s popularity is evident enough. Rampur’s residents, Hindu and Muslim, speak glowingly of Ms. Jayaprada’s readiness to help in a crisis, and are unanimous that she has brought development to the backward constituency.

On the campaign, Ms. Jayaprada stays clear of Hindu-Muslim issues, focusing instead on the 13 bridges she has built.

Yet the buzz in Rampur is that it is a difficult fight for Ms. Jayaprada. The complicating factor here is the spitfire Azam Khan. The senior SP functionary and Ms. Jayaprada’s former mentor is now on a mission to defeat her, thanks to his running battle with party general secretary Amar Singh. Mr. Azam Khan’s comments on his protégé have bordered on abusive. Worse, in recent days Rampur has been flooded with vulgar, obviously morphed pictures of the sitting MP.

As we negotiate Rampur’s bumpy roads, Ms. Jayaprada’s voice chokes: “I can fight the toughest opponent but this is so demeaning and underhand.”