Rampur: As two of his closest colleagues battle publically, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh has been forced to step into the war between Azam Khan and Amar Singh.
"I have told him a lot of times that if you have a problem then you should discuss it with me. I have given her the ticket to fight this election. Why should he fight with anyone else? He should have not fought with Jaya ji," said Mulayam.
"Please send this message of mine to Azam Khan that ticket to Jaya Prada was given by the party. It was given by Mulayam Singh and not by Amar. Azam Khan used to listen to me but he is not listening to me anymore and I want to convey it to him that I have given Jaya Prada the right to fight on the symbol," he added.
Things in the SP are now so strained that chief Mulayam Singh is now speaking to his one-time loyalist through the media. There are other efforts at damage control.
And the man who has been brought in for it, a confidante of Amar Singh, has come all the way from Maharashtra.
He has been campaigning for the past two weeks for Jaya Prada in Rampur where more than half the population is Muslim - trying to win back the crucial Muslim votes that the Samajwadi Party now fears will walk away with Azam Khan.
"I condemn a man who lies in front of people of his own faith to give himself more importance," said SP leader Abu Azmi.
But Azam Khan, whose single-minded focus of defeating Jaya Prada is an open secret in Rampur, is now threatening to split the Samajwadi Party and is equally belligerent.
"Muslims here are not going to get swept away by outsiders," said Azam Khan.
In these elections, Rampur has become an example of the kind of irony that is found only in Indian politics. The same man who welcomed Jaya Prada in 2004 to break the hold of the Nawab family in Rampur is now openly campaigning against the Bollywood star to bring the Begum family back into control of Rampur.
Even more ironical is that in his bid to win back the Muslim vote, Azmi has been openly speaking against Hindus. Perhaps not the best political strategy, considering that it was the Hindu vote that brought Jaya Prada victory in 2004.