After a two-year gap, BJP’s NDA ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) president Anupriya Patel has made a comeback in the Modi Government, ahead of the UP elections early next year. Her induction is seen both to reach out to the other backward classes as also to involve more allies in the BJP-led regime that has seen the exit of long-time partners Shiv Sena and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).
An MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Mirzapur, 40-year-old Patel belongs to the Kurmi community and had been a Minister of State in the first Government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Patel had been staking claim to a Ministerial berth on the ground of her party’s stronghold over the OBCs that have a sizeable number of voters in the key Purvanchal region.
“We have demanded the formation of a ministry for OBCs on the lines of the Ministry of Minorities to solve the problems of the backward classes,” she had said at a meeting of party workers on the 72nd birth anniversary of Apna Dal founder Sonelal Patel earlier this month.
Her party had been continuously raising its voice in Parliament for resolving the problems of farmers and proper implementation of the Swaminathan Commission recommendations so that they could get a fair price for their produce.
At the same time, she had even demanded the setting up of a national memorial to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Delhi.