Apna Dal
Apna Dal ( AD , Hindi अपना दल , "Our Party") is a political party in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh .
Party history
Apna Dal was founded on November 4th, 1995 in Uttar Pradesh. The party founder was Sone Lal Patel, who had been politically active in previous years. He was a leader in the founding of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 1984 and was a close confidante of the BSP founder Kanshi Ram . The BSP saw itself as representing the interests of the Dalits in the northern Indian states, especially in the densely populated Uttar Pradesh. The reasons for Sone Lal Patel's split from the BSP lay less in content than in personal power-political disputes. Kanshi Ram particularly benefited his protégée Mayawati , who in 1995 also held the office of Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh for a few months . As a result, Patel saw himself too limited in his options or placed behind him, so that he and his supporters left the BSP and founded their own party.
By its own admission, the new party should be a party for all (underprivileged) castes and for the Dalits. The colors of the party flag have been interpreted in such a way that the orange stands for the Hindu castes and the blue for the Dalits. De facto , the Apna Dal drew its voters mainly from the large Kurmi caste , one of the Other Backward Classes , to which the party founder Patel himself belonged and which is represented in various states, especially in northern India and Nepal . Although the Kurmis nowhere formed the majority of the population, they could be of decisive importance as a majority procurer in elections where the relative majority suffrage applies.
Leadership disputes and division
On October 17, 2009, the party founder and party leader died in a car accident. Thereafter, Patel's widow Krishna Patel and his daughter Anupriya Patel , who sat in the parliament of Uttar Pradesh as Apna Dal MP for the constituency of Rouhania, took over the leadership of the party. Krishna Patel became the party leader, while Anupriya Patel represented the party in public. In 2014 there was a leadership dispute between mother and daughter. The dispute also arose over the question of whether or not Apna Dal should continue to ally with the BJP in the upcoming election in Uttar Pradesh. Krishna Patel publicly accused her daughter of indiscipline and named her older daughter Pallavi Patel as general secretary of the party.
In December 2016 there was an open split in the party when Jawahar Lal Patel, the party's treasurer, with the support of Anupriya Patel, her faction of the party under the name Apna Dal (Sonelal) , or Apna Dal (S) for short, at the Indian Election Commission registered.
Election results
In the elections to the all-India parliament in 1996 , 1998 , 1999 , 2004 and 2009 , the Apna Dal won around half a million or more votes, but no constituency mandate. In the parliamentary elections in Uttar Pradesh she won no mandate in 1996 and 3 seats in 2002. However, the three elected MPs defected to the Samajwadi Party on October 24, 2003. In 2007 AD won no mandate and in 2012 one. At the all-India general election in 2014 but AD achieved their best result so far and the two Lok Sabha - constituencies 79-Mirzapur and 39-Pratapgarh win. The reason for this surprising increase in importance was that Amit Shah , the party strategist of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) absolutely wanted to ensure the victory of the BJP candidate in the constituency of the prestigious holy city of Varanasi and considered the support of AD to be necessary. The BJP candidate in Varanasi was the BJP top politician and later Prime Minister Narendra Modi . In return for the AD support in Varanasi, the BJP renounced its own candidates in the two constituencies mentioned and supported the AD candidates there. After the election, Apna Dal was personally involved in the first coalition cabinet Modi (2014-2019).
The Apna Dal (S) faction, split off in December 2016 , took part in the parliamentary elections in Uttar Pradesh in February / March 2017 as an ally of the BJP and won 9 constituencies, which was a comparatively respectable result.
Individual evidence
- ^ History. (No longer available online.) Apna Dal website, archived from the original on November 14, 2016 ; accessed on November 14, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c Who are Modi's 26 allies in the NDA? rediff.com, May 5, 2014, accessed November 14, 2016 .
- ↑ Apna Dal chief Sonelal Patel dies in a road mishap in Uttar Pradesh. dnaindia.com, October 18, 2009, accessed November 14, 2016 .
- ↑ Prerna Katiyar: Patel pitched against Patel in UP polls. The Economic Times, September 4, 2016, accessed November 14, 2016 .
- ↑ Hamza Khan: Mother pitches daughter vs daughter in Apna Dal. The Indian express, October 31, 2016, accessed November 14, 2016 .
- ↑ Apna Dal (S) registered, has the backing of Anupriya Patel. The Times of India, December 15, 2016, accessed March 12, 2017 .
- ^ Election Results - Full Statistical Reports. Indian Election Commission, accessed on November 14, 2016 (English, election results of all Indian elections to the Lok Sabha and the parliaments of the states since independence).
- ↑ Apna Dal merges with Samajwadi Party. rediff.com, October 24, 2003, accessed November 14, 2016 .
- ↑ Uttar Pradesh election results 2017 live: Historic win for BJP, Akhilesh says 'our struggle will continue'. livemint.com, March 12, 2017, accessed March 12, 2017 .
