BJP’s Apna Dal expresses concern

Apna Dal, an alliance partner of the BJP in UP, has blamed the BJP leadership for not showing respect to the ruling party’s allies and said the party should learn lessons from its defeat in the recent assembly polls. “BJP’s central leadership should hear its allies in UP. Leaders and workers of all three NDA members in UP — BJP, Apna Dal and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party — are a frustrated lot. BJP’s UP leadership must improve its relations with the two allies,” Ashish Patel, working president of Apna Dal, told ET on Tuesday.

Apna Dal has nine MLAs in the state assembly and its leader Anupriya Patel is Union minister of state for health. The party won two LS seats in the 2014 general election.