Once firebrand Patidar leader Hardik Patel, whose agitation had shaken up the BJP Government in Gujarat since 2015 and had vouched not to join any political party, subsequently not only joined the Congress, was made the youngest working State unit president and now has quit.
Twenty-nine now, Patel who once called Union Home Minister Amit Shah “General Dyre” has now found a variety of faults with the Congress and is full praise for the BJP, including its decision of revoking Article 370.
He had repeatedly said that he would “rather die and never ever join politics and work relentlessly for the Patidars”. The same Patel has now found virtues in the BJP.
Hardik had campaigned against the BJP in the 2017 assembly elections, 2019 Lok Sabha and 2021 local body polls, and has called the Congress party communal, anti-Patel community and anti-Gujarat.
In his first media interview in 2017, he had stated that he was determined to work against the BJP since its social and economic policies had damaged not only his Patidar community but all backward classes and youth. In fact, it was this theme of Hardik Patel that had attracted youngsters from all communities to his political rallies. And now, Patel has other claims to make on the Congress party.
Ridiculing Hardik Patel’s claims of the Congress party giving him short shrift and ignoring him, Gujarat Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi told Vibes of India, “The Congress party especially gave him a helicopter to campaign during the elections.”
When Patel joined the Congress in March 2019 in presence of the then party president Rahul Gandhi, he had said, “I had two options: BJP or Congress. It is obvious that I can’t embrace a party that kept me in jail for nine months and whose government took the lives of 14 Patidar youngsters.”
The Patidar youngster, who quit the Congress in 1,161 days, told reporters on Thursday, that he didn’t see any growth for the Congress party in Gujarat until 2050. “I wasted my three years in this party,” he said.
