Caste politics necessity in UP, BJP ally on tie up with top backward class leaders

"It would help if Rajbhar re-joined the National Democratic Alliance," Patel, who has a support base among Kurmis in eastern UP and is currently the BJP's biggest ally in the state, told NDTV today.

Rajbhar's party has the support of Other Backward Classes.

Rajbhar's party, SBSP, had allied with the BJP in the last UP assembly polls and was even made a minister in the Yogi Adityanath government. But he quit the NDA ahead of the general elections in 2019.

"Caste politics is a necessity in UP. We can't say for sure everyone in UP will vote for us," Patel told NDTV.

BJP's attempt to break away Jayant Chaudhary's party RLD from an alliance with SP did not work.

RLD has a strong support base in western UP, where Jats votes will call the shots in almost all the seats.

On Apna Dal's alliance with BJP, she said, "The BJP has its own ideology and we have our own... Apna Dal stands for the poor and minorities."

Patel's mother heads a faction of Apna Dal that split from the main party and is allying Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party.

According to NDTV, On allegations by her mother that she was cheating the Kurmi community, she said, "My father formed the party in 1995 and my party has not deviated from the values and principles and the search for social justice by which he steered his party. You check our history... We have not made any compromises...  my community knows what I am doing for them."