'Deadline' for talks with BJP over, Apna Dal MP Anupriya Patel meets Congress leadership

NEW DELHI: In signs of fresh coalition trouble for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, junior health minister and Apna Dal MP Anupriya Patel signalled that her party may be inclined to exit the NDA in the coming days since its saffron partner had failed to meet it halfway and consider its demands.

Anupriya Patel held separate meetings with Congress president Rahul Gandhi and general secretary in charge of East UP, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, earlier this week, while her husband and Apna Dal (S) chief Ashish Patel met with Congress general secretary Jyotiraditya Scindia on Wednesday.

While party leaders remained tight-lipped about the details and referred to the meeting with Scindia as “a meeting of friends”, the conversations come in the backdrop of Anupriya’s assertions that BJP failed to iron out differences with her party over seat-sharing in the Lok Sabha polls, for which Apna Dal had set a deadline of February 20. Hardening her stance after no discussions were held, Patel said Apna Dal is now “free to choose its path”, and that an announcement of the final decision is expected after a meeting of the party’s UP functionaries on February 28.

Apna Dal, which has in past elections, hobnobbed with other political parties before zeroing in on BJP, may also be taking a leaf out of the other NDA partner, Shiv Sena, which, after launching sustained attacks on PM Modi and the BJP leadership, entered a 25-23 seat alliance with the BJP in Maharashtra. Apna Dal, in this context, may be playing hardball with its senior partner too, because of the influence it wields over a sizeable chunk of Kurmi votes in East UP, a crucial vote bank for the BJP.

Party sources said Patel may, however, seriously consider aligning with the Congress because it is more likely to accommodate Apna Dal’s demand for a higher number of LS seats to contest on, in the politically crucial state. Patel, insiders said, may also be targeting the vacuum in Kurmi leadership within the Congress in UP, a space that would have been harder to bargain for, if she were to liaise with the Samajwadi Party or BSP.

The Apna Dal had entered into an alliance with the BJP in 2014 and won both the seats it contested. In 2017, it contested the UP assembly polls in alliance with the BJP and won nine of 11 seats with a high Kurmi concentration.