THE APNA Dal (Sonelal) on Friday held its national convention at Lucknow’s Indira Gandhi Pratishtan, during which party president Anupriya Patel urged the workers and leaders to start work in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. She also said a “conspiracy to weaken the party is being hatched by using people on the inside”. This was the first national convention of the party – a BJP ally in the state and at the Centre – after it got the recognition of being a state party in UP. Union minister and party chief Anupriya Patel was reelected as the national president of the party unopposed during the convention. Speaking after her election, she said it is “fine when opponents are against you, but when your own people start opposing you, then it is painful”. “This pain has been there since I became the party general secretary”. “An attempt is being made to weaken the party by using our own people,” she said. Patel said that the party will continue to work for social justice, and that the workers should be scared of the critics of the party because the party is growing. “The criticism is natural,” said Patel. She thanked the party’s workers and leadership and said that in 2009, when her father Sonelal Patel died, she “did not know the basics of politics but was trusted by the party and made general secretary”. “In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the party fought two seats and won both. In the 2017 state polls, the party fought 11 and won nine. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls too, the party won all seats. In the elections of 22, we won 12 of 17 seats in the state. This is the result of the hard work of Dr Sonelal Patel,” she told the gathering. “As history is witness, whenever attempts were made to weaken the party, the party got stronger because of the dedication, struggle of the workers…” she added. After a good show in the state elections earlier this year, the Apna Dal (S) is the third largest party in the state behind ruling BJP and Samajwadi Party. Under the leadership of Anupriya Patel, daughter of late Kurmi leader Sonelal Patel, the party had fielded candidates on 17 seats and 12 of them won with a success rate of 70 per cent.
