New Delhi: Union minister Anupriya Patel, who represents Uttar Pradesh’s Mirzapur Lok Sabha seat, has demanded a separate ministry for OBC welfare, highlighting the need for the government’s focused attention on OBCs and separate budget allocations and mechanisms for them.
The Apna Dal leader currently holds the portfolios of the minister of state for health and family welfare and chemicals and fertilisers.
“I am demanding a separate ministry for OBC welfare,” Anupriya Patel said during an interview with ThePrint, terming such moves “necessary to strengthen democracy”. “In our country, there was never a minority affairs ministry. When the need arose, it was created. There was never a tribal affairs ministry. When the need arose, it was created. Our tribal population needed to be looked at separately,” she explained.
Over the past few months, Anupriya Patel’s statements and a letter to UP CM Yogi Adityanath on ensuring reserved posts get filled properly during recruitment exams became a talking point amid what seemed to be a sense of disquiet about the party losing non-Yadav OBC votes to the INDIA bloc during the Lok Sabha election.
In her interview, Patel cleared the air, saying she has nothing against anyone in the party but is raising her voice for her community, the OBCs, who no one can take for granted in Uttar Pradesh. If the interests of her community go ignored, she has the responsibility to take it up with the state government, Patel said.
”OBCs make up the highest share of the population in UP. One can not ignore their voice. Their issues must be resolved. Whether it is the recruitment exam for 69,000 teachers or any other recruitment exam, all should be in line with the reserved quota. I will keep raising my voice; it’s my duty,” she said.
“I have not raised the issues I have raised just now. I have been talking about the teacher recruitment issue from four years ago. I have spoken to the topmost leadership and brought the issue to everyone’s attention many times,” she added.
Asked whether she was trying pressure tactics on the Yogi government, Patel said, ”For our voters, for the people for whom this party was formed, for whom we are standing, for their benefit, if there is any injustice, intentionally or unintentionally, as an ally, what is our responsibility? It’s our responsibility to tell the CM that this is happening in the government. It is our moral duty.”
“I have political power, but I am not one to keep quiet,” she added.
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‘Had an idea of Lok Sabha poll results’
On the Lok Sabha results, Patel said, ”We had a sense of the results from the fourth phase. We were directly connected to our grassroots workers…. So, with the feedback we were getting from them, we had reached an understanding — they (the opposition parties) have a weapon (narrative).” She added, “The thought was getting stronger. But, at that time, we did not even have that much time to reach out to such a large section of voters and rid them of their misconceptions.”.
On the preparation for the UP bypolls amid murmurs over ignorance in seat distribution among NDA allies, Patel denied any differences had arisen. “PM Modi is our undisputed leader. Under his leadership, we are strengthening our alliances. In the coming bypolls, the NDA’s performance will likely be good.”
Patel also said that the public, by now, has recognised the Opposition’s narrative of ‘Samvidhan Bachao (Save the Constitution)’, which had shifted a chunk of Dalit votes to INDIA, as fake. The Haryana election results showed that that narrative has burst, she added.
‘No turbulence in NDA govt’
Anupriya Patel emphasised the stability of the NDA government, saying that it will stay in place as in the past two tenures.
“The NDA government was already there. But, this time, the BJP has become weak, and the alliance partners have become strong. I think such a perception is more common in the media. But let’s not complicate it. Let’s keep it very simple. It is the NDA government. PM Modi is our undisputed leader,” she said.
“Some partners are big, and some partners, such as us, are small. The most important thing about the NDA is that it is not a post-election alliance. It is our pre-poll alliance… So, if you think there is some turbulence in the NDA, it is not like that,” she said.
Calling post-poll alliances the alliances of convenience, Patel said people expect the worst because they have seen more of those, but in a pre-poll alliance, the parties stay connected for a long time.
Asked why she is still a MOS, not a Cabinet minister, despite staying in the alliance for ten years, Patel said, ”I have no issues with it. I keep raising my voice as MOS also. No one can stop me. Issues of our deprived people matter to us. It doesn’t matter if I am a Cabinet minister or not.”
Jibe at Akhilesh’s PDA
During the interview, Patel targeted the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party’s strategy of PDA (Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak).
”Not once, but many times, the SP was in power in UP, but Akhilesh Yadav remembers Pichda and Dalit when he is not in power. Whatever problems he is raising today, when he was in power, he did not worry about those problems. He did not remember Pichda or Dalit,” she said.
“I have raised the issue of how in autonomous institutes of the state government, reserved seats have often been kept vacant. Now, you can investigate Akhilesh Yadav’s time in the government. This problem has been there since then,” she said. “What has he done? Now, he is asking for a caste census. Did not Nitish ji do it in Bihar? Why did you not? You were in power in the state. You were in the Centre, supporting the UPA government. Why did they not talk about caste census then?”
‘Party for every weaker section’
Anupriya Patel does not want her party to be labelled as the Kurmi Party only, though she agrees that Kurmis are one of the most influential communities in the present time.
“Our party is for all weaker sections. Our party has always talked about the entire deprived class—SC, ST, OBC,” she said.
Eight percent of UP’s population is Kurmis, who have been impactful on many seats of the Lok Sabha and many seats of the Vidhan Sabha.
“From Rampur to Ballia, you will find Kurmis. It is a very influential community. And we are the descendants of Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj…. But if someone wants to restrict us only to Kurmi politics because I am a Kurmi, that is unfair. We raise our voices for every weaker section. We are the party for every weaker section,” Patel said.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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