People Dissatisfied With UP Deputy Chief Minister: Akhilesh Yadav Ally

Samajwadi Party candidate Pallavi Patel dismisses her "outsider" tag as she takes on Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya in Sirathu assembly constituency, saying she is the "daughter-in-law of Kaushambi".

The Apna Dal (Kamervadi) leader is the elder sister of Union minister Anupriya Patel, whose Apna Dal (Sonelal) is an ally of the ruling BJP. Their father Sonelal Patel was a popular Kurmi leader in UP and the mother, Krishna Patel, now heads the Kamervadi faction.

She is part of the UP alliance led by Akhilesh Yadav's SP.

Just days back, when Mr Maurya filed his nomination papers here for the BJP, the younger sister accompanied him in a show of support.

But Pallavi Patel believes that the deputy Chief Minister has a tough fight on his hands as the people are upset with him.

"I feel he is facing the people here, and not the opposition candidate. So, it is actually a fight between the deputy CM and the people dissatisfied with him. For the people here, I am the face," she told PTI.

Mr Maurya calls himself a "son of Sirathu".

"I don't deny the fact that he is the son there. But at the same time, I also got married in the same district and hence, I am the daughter-in-law of Kaushambi," Ms Patel said on Wednesday.

"I had termed him 'nikamma' (useless), and I still stand by that. I still believe that he has not done enough for the place, what was expected of him and what was promised to the people here," she said.

So, the daughters and daughters-in-law have to take up the responsibility of setting things right, the opposition leader added.

She isn't impressed with the "withdrawal" by Anupriya Patel of the Apna Dal (S) candidate against their mother Krishna Patel in Pratapgarh, saying her sister's party merely passed on the seat to ally BJP.

"If they have so much respect for 'mata ji', they would have not even asked their alliance partner to field a candidate from there. It is not out of respect that they have taken back the candidate. It is out of fear that they have taken their candidate back," she said.

Attacking the ruling party, Ms Patel said, "For the BJP, it is like this -- before the elections everyone becomes Hindu, and once the elections are over, half of them become Dalits while the rest become backwards. This is their strategy."

"This time, the fight is between the 'kamera' (daily wage workers from all sections of society) and the 'lootera' (robbers)," she said.

She claimed that the SP alliance will win over 300 of the 403 seats in the assembly elections.

"I believe that the way in which the polling has gone in the first round and round two, it is very clear that the BJP is going to swept off from the state," she said.

She said the Yogi Adityanath government in UP has benefited only a certain section of society.

"Akhilesh on the other hand is a visionary leader, who is enthusiastic. He has a roadmap for society. He is focusing his energy on the young generation," she said.

Reacting to Prime Minister Modi's claim that Muslim women are voting for the BJP and his party has made significant gains in the first two phases of polling, Ms Patel said, "They are experts in making false claims."

She also challenged the claim that the SP has been giving the tickets to people who are in jail or on bail and said the alliance partner has distributed them only after "thoroughly examining the seats and the candidates".

She said the BJP has also fielded candidates with a criminal record, and alleged that Mr Maurya is among them.

"So, how can they claim that they are saints, and we are at fault?"

On the possibility of her or her mother becoming the deputy chief minister, Ms Patel said, "We never thought that way. We only thought of taking the alliance ahead so that we can form the government, and we are moving towards that."