Hardik Patel was last seen on the public stage in Gujarat during the 2017 Assembly elections where he vehemently voiced his dissent against the incumbent BJP and persuaded members of his community to vote against the saffron party.
Now, five months after the elections are done and dusted, Hardik Patel plans to revive the Patidar Reservation movement by holding a massive ‘Patidar Nyay Panchayat’ at Moti Malvan area of Dhrangadhara in Surendranagar District, on the evening of Saturday, 26 May.
The aim of the panchayat is to chart the future course of the reservation agitation for the Patidars. The event will be held under the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti’s (PAAS) banner. Interestingly, Hardik Patel has also extended an invitation to the some BJP leaders and claimed that four Patidar leaders of the saffron party are planning to join the panchayat. Alongside that, 16 MLAs from Congress are planning to join the panchayat as well, said Hardik.
However, in what the BJP calls a bizarre claim, Hardik has declared that the Dy Chief Minister Nitin Patel will also join him on stage. For the last couple of days, Hardik has been harping to the media that Nitin Patel will quit the party and join jim and PAAS.
But Nitin Patel said in a tweet:
“Since the past few days, some people are making an effort to tarnish my image and credibility by spreading rumours and a post with incorrect information on social media. This is a humble request to all the well wishers, karyakartas and citizens to not believe any such rumour.”
The deputy chief minister, a Patel face of the BJP, has been with his party even during the turbulence of the Patel quota agitation and had managed to win from the Mehasana Assembly constituency in the 2017 state elections.
About Hardik's Mahapanchayat, Nitin Patel said, "We don't have anything to do with it. He was a man who tried to defeat the BJP's Patel candidates. He is working on the Congress' agenda." He said that if such fake posts continued to appear on social media, then he would have no option but to take legal action against those spreading such rumours.
(With inputs from PTI)
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