Now, another BJP ally wants more seats

BJP's alliance trouble seems to be unending. Hardly had the BJP managed to pacify the Lok Janshakti Party, when yet another alliance partner of the saffron party, Apna Dal, has virtually raised a banner of revolt demanding "a respectable number of seats" to continue the tie-up in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The Apna Dal, a predominantly caste-based outfit, which had contested the 2014 Lok Sabha polls in alliance with the BJP and had won two seats, on Tuesday said that the party leaders were not being “accorded” due respect by the saffron party.

"The BJP should take lessons from the defeat in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and treat its allies with respect...our leaders are being ignored...we will be forced to rethink about our alliance if it continues," Apna Dal national president Ashish Patel said.

Patel said that his party leader and Union minister Anupriya Patel was not invited at government functions in the state. "We will not tolerate humiliation of our senior leaders," he added.

He said that the Apna Dal wanted a "respectable" number of seats in UP in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls.

The Apna Dal wielded considerable influence on Kurmis which formed around four per cent of the total electorate in UP and played a decisive role in around a dozen Lok Sabha constituencies, mainly in about half a dozen districts in the eastern part of the state.

The Sueheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP), another alliance partner of the BJP in UP, had already warned to sever its ties with the saffron party if not given its "due" in the 2019 elections.