Latest News | INDIA Bloc Leaders Should Clarify if We Are Part of Alliance or Not: Apna Dal's Pallavi Patel
Get latest articles and stories on Latest News at LatestLY. Expressing displeasure over not being given any seat for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, Apna Dal (K) on Friday said that INDIA bloc leaders should clarify if it was still part of the alliance or not.
Lucknow, Mar 22 (PTI) Expressing displeasure over not being given any seat for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, Apna Dal (K) on Friday said that INDIA bloc leaders should clarify if it was still part of the alliance or not.
The development follows Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav's remarks that the alliance with Apna Dal (Kamerawadi) was for the 2022 assembly elections and not the Lok Sabha polls.
Yadav made the comments after Apna Dal (K) said that it was contesting three seats in the upcoming elections – Phulpur, Mirzapur and Kaushambi.
Speaking to reporters, Apna Dal (K) MLA Pallavi Patel said, “SP president Akhilesh Yadav and the main party of the INDIA bloc at the national level, Congress, should say what they are going to do with Apna Dal (K). Those who have formed the INDIA bloc should clarify whether we are a part of it or not.”
“What happened with Nitish Kumar (JDU leader who quit the INDIA bloc) in Bihar, the same is happening with Rajmata Krishna Patel (Apna Dal - K president) in Uttar Pradesh,” she said.
When asked whether her party would accept any offer from the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), she said, “No proposal has been received but if it happens then the party will take a decision on it."
Patel stressed that the doors for talks with the INDIA bloc regarding seat sharing are still open.
The Apna Dal (K) said that the party had asked to contest from Mirzapur, Phulpur and Kaushambi Lok Sabha seats under the opposition alliance but it was not given even a single seat.
"(SP) had 47 MLAs in 2017 (assembly polls). In 2022, with the support of Om Prakash Rajbhar, Sanjay Chauhan, Keshav Dev Maurya, Jayant Chaudhary, Rajmata Krishna Patel, the SP improved its tally from 47 to 111 and got 34 per cent votes,” Patel said.
"After that, you thought that all 34 per cent of the votes were yours and now you do not need anyone. You are living in an illusion,” the Sirahu MLA said.
Patel had contested the 2022 assembly elections from Sirathu seat on an SP ticket and defeated Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya.
Asked if she would resign as MLA, Patel said, "I am not an MLA of the Samajwadi Party. I am an MLA of Apna Dal's alliance. However, SP has the right to ask for my resignation and expel me.”
In a press statement released on Wednesday, the party had said, "A meeting of the Apna Dal (K) central executive committee was held under national president Krishna Patel. It has been decided in the meeting to contest three seats as part of the INDIA bloc."
In Uttar Pradesh, Congress is set to contest 17 Lok Sabha seats and the Samajwadi Party will field its candidates on 62 seats, as per the seat-sharing arrangement decided by the INDIA bloc parties. The Trinamool Congress will contest the Bhadohi Lok Sabha poll as part of the opposition bloc.
The Samajwadi Party has given the Bhadohi seat to its INDIA bloc partner Trinamool Congress.
The rift between the SP and the Apna Dal came out into the open during the recent Rajya Sabha election when Patel insisted that she will only vote for the ‘PDA candidates' – Akhilesh Yadav's coinage for ‘pichde' (backward classes), Dalits, alpsankhyak (minorities). Two of the three candidates of the SP in the Rajya Sabha polls were not from these groups.
The Mirzapur Lok Sabha seat is represented by Union minister and Apna Dal (Sonelal) chief Anupriya Patel. The Phulpur and Kaushambi Lok Sabha constituencies are also represented by BJP MPs.
SP candidates had garnered the second-highest votes in all the three seats in the 2019 general election.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)