All-women contest looms in Rampur constituency

Two glamourous women Noor Bano and Jaya Prada are set to battle it out in Rampur, a constituency in Uttar Pradesh(UP) that has the largest number of Muslim voters outside Kashmir.

The Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) has been unable to decide on its candidate, fluctuating between Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi's wife Seema and Rajinder Sharma with the former now being looked at seriously in a bid to convert Rampur into an all-women constituency.

Rampur will witness a four-cornered contest with the Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP) having already decided to field an old Congress hand Afroze Ali Khan who was brought into the party at the time by Noor Bano.

He left subsequently to join the Samajwadi party, and is now the BSP Lok Sabha candidate, gearing up to cut into the Muslim base of the Congressman. She had defeated her nearest BJP rival in the last elections by over a lakh votes and insists that she is not worried about the new equations in Rampur. "I am confident," she said yesterday pointing out that the other parties were getting together to defeat her.

Jaya Prada has glamour and the strong base of the Samajwadi party in Rampur to sustain her.

The four Assembly seats in the constituency are held by the Samajwadi party that is confident that despite her Andhra Pradesh background, Jaya Pradha will entice the voters in Rampur.

She herself declared excitedly "Andhra Pradesh is my janambhoomi (birthplace) and UP will be my karambhoomi (place of duty). I hope the people of UP will accept my service." She was with the Telugu Desam, but has now joined the Samajwadi party and recognises Amar Singh as her "leader."

The Samajwadi party that is confident of capturing a substantial section of the 43 per cent Muslim vote in Rampur is now optimistic that Jaya Prada will succeed in luring the non-Muslim vote.

Noor Bano does not have any legislators to fall back upon and is aware that her win in the last parliamentary polls was also because at that time the Congress party had two legislators from Rampur. She is counting largely on the "outsider" issue and the sympathy factor.

The Bahujan Samaj party has clearly targeted the Congress in this Lok Sabha constituncy by fielding Khan. A Congress legislator, he has worked closely with Noor Bano and is expected to focus his campaign against her.

He is not seen as a serious candidate but more in the nature of a spoiler for the Congress in Rampur. The Samajwadi and the Congress parties will try to consolidate the Muslim vote while the effort of the BSP and the BJP will be to split the vote.

The Asian Age