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Nishad party chief meets Amit Shah, BJP chief Nadda, discusses UP assembly polls
Nishad party chief Sanjay Nishad talks about winning the election together, indicates his party will continue its alliance with BJP
Nishad party chief Sanjay Nishad met Union home minister Amit Shah as well as BJP president JP Nadda in New Delhi on Saturday, and appeared pleased after the meeting.
“We discussed the 2022 UP polls and how together we could win the elections,” Nishad said on the phone from Delhi after the meeting, indicating that his party would continue its alliance with BJP for the 2022 UP assembly polls.
“More such meetings would be held,” he said. Sanjay’s son Praveen, currently the BJP MP from Sant Kabir Nagar in eastern Uttar Pradesh, too, was present at the meeting.
Earlier, Sanjay Nishad had expressed unhappiness at his party not getting representation in the recent expansion-cum-reshuffle of the Union council of ministers last month.
Sanjay Nishad, who claims his party has influence in 160 assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, had previously met chief minister Yogi Adityanath and deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya in Lucknow on June 23.
The BJP in UP has delayed announcing names of four candidates for MLCs and Sanjay Nishad is expecting that his party would bag one of these nominations. There is no clarity yet on whether, months ahead of the elections, the Adityanath government would opt for a reshuffle-cum- expansion but Sanjay Nishad is also among the claimants if there were to be one, party leaders said.
Sanjay Nishad responded with “dekhiye (let’s see)” when asked on the likelihood of his becoming an MLC or a minister in UP. He wouldn’t say if these issues also figured in his talks with BJP leaders.
“We discussed 2022 UP polls and also discussed the political and constitutional ‘hissedari’ (share) of Nishads in governance,” he said.
In 2018 Lok Sabha by-polls, Sanjay Nishad’s son Praveen Nishad had stunned the BJP by winning the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, however, the BJP wooed the Nishad party and Praveen won the Sant Kabir Nagar seat on the BJP ticket.
