Apna dal rift: Anupriya warns party MP not to cross ‘Lakshman Rekha’

Since October last year, the Mirzapur MP has been locked in a bitter battle with her mother Krishna Patel, daughter Pallavi Patel and the Pratapgarh MP over claims of party’s ownership.

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“Singh is misinterpreting his position in the party. He had no role in setting up Apna Dal or taking it forward. He won’t succeed in his attempts to play with the ambitions of my sister Pallavi Patel (who was recently made the party’s vice-president) and mislead workers. There are many political parties that have grown insecure with the rising stature of Apna Dal and it is upon instructions from such parties that some elements are conspiring against the party internally. Our workers will soon give a befitting reply to them,” she said.

Anupriya continued: “The party’s founder does not get respect during the party’s programmes. As for their allegation that I am being too ambitious at a young age, I would only say that my ambitions are to carry forward the message of Sone Lal Patel (Anupriya’s father) and to fulfill his mission, cut short by his untimely death in 2009.”

Anupriya also condemned the manner in which “my sister Pallavi has dragged my husband in the issue”. “Political morality calls for keeping the family away from politics. She has political ambitions and that’s why she joined the party but to hide her ambitions, she has dragged my husband (into it). I would only ask her to maintain the political dignity and morality. If she hadn’t been ambitious, then she wouldn’t have entered the party and occupied the unconstitutional post of vice-president,” she said.

While her mother Krishna Patel claims herself to be the party’s president, Anupriya reiterated that she was “elected as the President by party workers in February last year and the Election Commission was informed in August about it”. Krishna Patel had earlier claimed that she has expelled Anupriya from the party.

“As the president, I had called party meeting twice but on both occasions, the party’s office (in Lucknow) was locked by supporters of my mother. And hence to prevent the tempers of supporters from flaring up, I decided to put my locks at the party office as well in the presence of the police, to be unlocked only after the EC has taken a decision,” she said, indicating that the matter may finally be put to rest once the EC takes a call.

She also announced that she will be apart of six-member delegation that will visit Australia between May 13-21, and that district workers’ convention will be organised between May 28 and June 1 in Kaushambi, Sultanpur, Lucknow, Mohanlalganj and Sonbhadra, which will be followed by a grand rally in Varanasi on July 2, the birth anniversary of her father and Apna Dal founder Sone Lal Patel.
Meanwhile, party’s Pratapgarh MP Harivansh Singh has termed the allegations against him as “baseless”.

“Anupriya is like my daughter and I have done a lot. I had supported her in assembly elections, when she contested from Rohaniya seat in 2012. She should not forget what I have done for her,” Singh said in a statement issued here. He said that he was devoted to the Apna Dal and would continue to work under the party president Krishna Patel.