At the time when Apna Dal MP Anupriya Patel took oath as minister of state at the Rashtrapati Bhawan, becoming the youngest member of the Narendra Modi ministry at 35, her mother and party president Krishna Patel sat fuming and sulking in her house in Kanpur.
At the time when Apna Dal MP Anupriya Patel took oath as minister of state at the Rashtrapati Bhawan, becoming the youngest member of the Narendra Modi ministry at 35, her mother and party president Krishna Patel sat fuming and sulking in her house in Kanpur. She even refused to watch the swearing-in which was being telecast live on TV.
However, for her part, Anupriya told reporters after the swearing in: “Whatever I am today is because of the blessings of my mother and father.” She denied any ill will with her mother. Asked about the Apna Dal merger with BJP, she said: “As far as I know, (BJP chief) Amit Shah has said BJP and Apna Dal will contest in alliance in UP.”
Two of Anupriya’s sisters, Parul and Aman, married and aloof from politics, accompanied her for the oath ceremony while the third sister Pallavi was by her mother’s side. Last year, Krishna had expelled then general secretary Anupriya and installed Pallavi as national vice-president.
“She (Anupriya) can not be trusted. If she can’t be loyal to her family, how would she be loyal to Modi,” she said angrily as some mediapersons thronged her house to gauge her reaction.
“I had sacked her from the party last year itself. She is only interested in her own projection and career, and has done nothing for the party,” the mother said, though not forgetting to make up for her outburst with some rather labored good wishes. “As a mother, I can never curse her. I hope she does well as a minister,” she said.
However, the Apna Dal will not merge with the BJP, Krishna Patel said. The other Apna Dal MP from Pratapgarh Harivansh Singh also told dna: “There is no question of merging with the BJP. If BJP wants, we will contest the 2017 UP Assembly election in alliance.”
Anupriya and her mother have been in constant conflict trying to wrest control of the party ever since her father Apna Dal founder Sone Lal Patel, a formidable leader of the Kurmi backward caste in central UP, died in an accident in 2009.
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