With Amit Shah’s visit BJP starts working on Kurmi vote bank in UP early

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Amit Shah will be the chief guest of the birth anniversary celebration of Apna Dal founder Sonelal Patel in Lucknow. Shah has been invited by Apna Dal (S) president Anupriya Patel. Patel is part of the NDA and a union minister of state in the central government.

Apna Dal (S) is a party primarily known for its influence among the Kurmi community in UP. Kurmi community has been a strong vote bank of the BJP since 2014 and the party has given adequate representation to keep the community intact with the NDA. This is an early start from the BJP reaching out to the Kurmi community ahead of upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

By attending the function, Shah will give a message that the party is going strong in alliance with Apna Dal (S) and the BJP is the real well-wisher of the community. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is leading the drive to unite the opposition parties against the BJP. Kumar is a strong Kurmi leader from Bihar.

If he can stitch an opposition alliance against the BJP, he could gain some traction among the Kurmi community in the country. Kumar contesting Lok Sabha from some seat in UP is also played up by some of his party members in private. In these circumstances, BJP doesn’t want to lose its edge among the Kurmi voters in a state which has the highest Lok Sabha seats.

At present, there are 26 Kurmi MLAs from the BJP in UP and half a dozen MPs. Two Kurmi MPs Pankaj Chowdhary and Anupriya Patel are ministers in Modi’s cabinet. The OBCs account for 52 per cent of the population in UP.