Jayaprada at UPA bash

Film star-turned-politician Jayaprada managed to come to the fourth anniversary celebrations of the Congress-led UPA, along with her mentor Amar Singh. Jayaprada recently made waves by calling on Congress president Sonia Gandhi, triggering speculation whether she planned to contest the next General Election in 2014 on the Congress ticket. Earlier, she had signalled her keenness to go to the YSRCP.

Grapevine has it that her mentor Amar Singh advised her to go to the Congress, so that she has a wider choice of contesting not only from her home state of Andhra Pradesh, but also from her present constituency of Rampur in Uttar Pradesh, where the Congress wants to increase its seats tally. Amar Singh is also seeking Congress support to challenge the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh. There is a convergence of interests. Both want to challenge the SP on its turf and wrest political space. Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi has set a target to the Congress of winning 40 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP. The Congress is also rallying all the anti-Mulayam Singh Yadav forces like Beni Prasad Verma, who represents the non-Yadav OBCs, and Amar Singh, who can wean away the upper-castes, who had recently gone along with the SP. Leaders like Raj Babbar and Salman Khurshid are being roped in to win back Muslims, after the killing of DSP Zia-ul-Haq and withdrawal of support to the SP by Delhi Jama Masjid Shahi Imam Ahmed Bukhari.