BJP ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) today called the planned visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Mirzapur, the seat held by the party in the Lok Sabha, as a sign of further cementing of the ties between the two NDA partners.
Union minister Anupriya Patel is the only Lok Sabha MP from Apna Dal's Sonelal faction, which also won nine seats in the state assembly election it fought along with the BJP.
Modi will be in Mirzapur on Sunday as part of a two-day eastern Uttar Pradesh trip which begins tomorrow.
With barely a year to go before the next Lok Sabha polls, Apna Dal (S) has indicated that it is sticking with the BJP.
"Apna Dal (Sonelal) has proved to be a trusted ally of the BJP. We have been with the BJP through thick and thin," AD(S) spokesperson Arvind Sharma told PTI here.
"In fact, we have been able to transfer our votes to the BJP, which proved to be an important factor in gaining the mandate both during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and also during the 2017 UP Assembly elections," he added.
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He said even Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had recently termed AD(S) an "ideal coalition partner".
"The cementing of ties between the BJP and the AD(S) can be gauged from the fact that senior AD(S) leader Anupriya Patel has been sharing the stage with prominent leaders including BJP chief Amit Shah and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, he said.
She is likely to share the stage with the prime minister in Mirzapur too," Sharma said.
He said the PM's July 15 visit to Mirzapur will further cement ties between the two allies.
"The fact that senior leaders of the BJP attend programmes organized by our party indicates that we are a trusted ally of the BJP. We will strengthen the NDA and all future steps will be taken keeping this in mind," he said.
Adityanath and UP BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey had paid homage to Anupriya Patel's father and Apna Dal stalwart Sonelal Patel on his last birth anniversary.
Recently, BJP president Amit Shah too was in Mirzapur, where he also met Anupriya Patel.
Her husband Ashish Singh Patel was elected unopposed to the UP Legislative Council in April along with 10 BJP candidates.
In the 2017, UP Assembly elections, the BJP won 312 out of the 403 seat in the House and AD(S) bagged nine of the 11 seats it contested.
Another BJP ally, the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, got four seats.