Jaya Prada has been pitted against Samajwadi Party's Azam Khan (File)
Actor-turned-politician Jaya Prada, who is the BJP's candidate from her former parliamentary constituency Rampur, today said that she wasn't worried about a "Hindu-Muslim" vote division as she had scored the BJP's Hindu votes even when she contested as a Samajwadi Party candidate.
Jaya Prada had represented Rampur twice in the Lok Sabha - in 2004 and 2009 - as a member of the Akhilesh Yadav's party, whose core voters include members of the Muslim community.
"When I had won the elections two times, the atmosphere of Rampur was completely different. But the BJP's Hindu vote, they always voted for me and ensured my win," she told NDTV.
Jaya Prada has been pitted against Samajwadi Party's Azam Khan, an influential leader in the constituency, which has a sizable Muslim population.
"In Rampur, there is a Hindu-Muslim division (vote division), but when I started working there as the lawmaker, I never talked about the division. When a road is made, we can't say only the Hindus will walk on it, if a road is being construction, both Hindus and Muslims will walk on it," she added.
The actor-turned-politician had joined politics in 1994 as a member of the Telugu Desam Party, which was headed by NT Rama Rao. But she left following differences with Chandrababu Naidu and joined the Samajwadi Party.
She and her associate Amar Singh were expelled from the party in 2010, a year after she had been elected as the lawmaker from the constituency. She had unsuccessfully contested the 2014 general election from the Bijnor seat on Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal ticket.
On joining the BJP, she said, "For the first time I have got entry into a national party. I feel very good because I am working under a leader, who is brave, who thinks of the nation's security and Bharat Mata's prestige. He replies to those who denigrate mother India."
Jaya Prada has had a bitter and much publicised feud with Azam Khan, who she has accused of harassing her.
"Even as a sitting MP (Member of Parliament) from a party, I wasn't spared. Azam Khan harassed me. He attempted an acid attack on me. I had no certainty if I would be alive the next day. I would tell mother while leaving the house that I wasn't sure if I would ever return home. I emerged out of it," Jaya Prada told reporters at a literature festival in Mumbai last month.