With Uttar Pradesh gearing up for the next assembly elections early next year, the opposition political parties are desperately seeking new allies, particularly the small political outfits. The Samajwadi Party has stepped up efforts for winning new allies ahead of the 2022 elections in UP. SP President Akhilesh Yadav met Pallavi Patel, national general secretary of Apna Dal (Communist), in Lucknow on Friday. This is the splinter group of Apna Dal (Sonelal) headed by her sister Anupriya Patel, an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The duo reportedly discussed matters regarding the 2022 assembly polls in UP.
Recently, Anupriya Patel, who was a Union minister during the first term of the Narendra Modi government, met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi. The Apna Dal (S) is also an ally of the Yogi Adityanath government in UP. For some time, there were rumours about Apna Dal (S) being unhappy with the BJP. However, after Anupriya Patel’s meeting with Amit Shah, things have reportedly come back on track between the two allies.
The Apna Dal (S) has nine MLAs in the UP assembly while Anupriya Patel is the MP from Mirzapur. Apna Dal has been with the NDA at the Centre since the time of Modi 1.0. Anupriya Patel’s husband, Ashish Patel, has also not been given a ministerial berth in the Yogi government. Ashish Patel is the national president of Apna Dal (S) and MLC. The party is considered to have a good grip on the Kurmi voters in Purvanchal area.
Meanwhile, the SP chief on Saturday charged that the BJP government was indulging in double standards. He said on one hand the government was claiming that the treatment of COVID-19 was free in all government hospitals while on the other, the PSU banks were offering loans at concessional rates for treatment of the novel coronavirus disease.
He alleged that the health services in the state were in a shambles due to the incompetence and inefficiency of the Yogi Adityanath government. He said the government had no control over private hospitals as they were acting in an arbitrary manner and fleecing the poor patients of COVID-19. He said despite the repeated claims by the government there was no let up in black marketing of the essential medicines for COVID-19 treatment.