The Aam Aadmi Party in Gujarat on Monday suffered three blows in just seven hours with three leaders quitting and two of them joining the BJP.
Surat-based diamantaire Mahesh Savani, renowned Gujarati singer Vijay Suwala and young vice-president of Ahmedabad city of the party Nilam Vyas resigned from the party on Monday. While Suwala and Vyas joined the BJP, Savani said he had quit after realizing politics was not meant for him and public service was his motto.
Suwala had joined the AAP seven months ago on June 22, 2021. Vyas was welcomed to the BJP with a saffron scarf by BJP city general secretary Pradipsinh Vaghela on Monday.
Hours later, Mahesh Savani announced his resignation from the AAP. “I am no longer in the Aam Aadmi Party. I am not a man of politics but of service, I have no passion for any position. Now I will only connect with public service,” Savani claimed.
Savani is an important loss for the party in Surat. Managing director of the Rs 2,500 crore Savani Group, is known to marry off orphan daughters without discriminating on the basis of caste. Moreover, he has been organizing mass weddings for the last several years, including his sons’. In addition, Savani took responsibility for the education of the children of the soldiers who were martyred in Uri.
The Savani Group also runs real estate business as well as Gujarati, Hindi and English medium schools in Surat, while his P.P. Savani Heart Institute has developed a heart surgery facility for poor patients at a nominal rate.
During the Patidar reservation movement, Mahesh Savani worked hard to get bail for Hardik Patel, who was lodged in Lajpore jail for treason. Savani played the role of a mediator between the government and Hardik.
During the pandemic, Savani started 11 Covid Care Centers in Surat by the organization called ‘Seva’ while he also took his team to the villages of Saurashtra to treat the Covid-19 patients.
Savani, whose name was being discussed during the Lok Sabha elections as a probable BJP candidate from Surat, has also courted controversy earlier, including charges of kidnapping a builder Gautam Patel. The police had even arrested four of his men from his office while he had managed to escape.
It was alleged that Mahesh Savani and his accomplices drove the builder to the office and beat him up at the bungalow of Gautam Khodika Patel, a builder living in Keshav Park Society, Parle Point. The builder was forced to write off the bungalow or pay Rs 19 crore in return for Rs 3 crore.
