OBC quota: Patels’ rally to bring city at halt

Top police officials, including city commissioner Shivanand Jha and others, personally supervised the security arrangements during the mega rally with instructions to the force to exercise “restraint”, even as Patel appealed to his followers to maintain peace at all costs.

Hardik Patel, a 22-year-old graduate, is leading the movement and is on an indefinite hunger strike until the state government relents. “Only if our rights are safeguarded, we will let the lotus (BJP’s party symbol) in 2017”.

He said he Patels know how to snatch their rights if the government did not give them reservation. To a follow up question by the interviewer who asked how come there was corruption in Gujarat when the world had been told that it was corruption-free, Hardik Patel said, “there is silent corruption”.

“After that, we will take out our “Maha-Kranti Rally” to hand over memorandum to the district Collector”, Patel said during a press conference here.

He said what prompted him to lead the struggle was the concerns of the youth from the community who did not get jobs or admission in government educational institutions due to the reservation policy.

Apart from Nitin Patel, Gujarat Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama and Minister of State for Home Rajni Patel was also present at the meeting with Patel leaders.

Launched at a rally in Visnagar town of north Gujarat, the Patel agitation has spread across the State, filling the streets of Surat, Vadodara, Mehsana and Ahmedabad on Monday.

Earlier, Patel was removed forcibly from GMDC ground, the area where he was sitting on dharna on Tuesday morning demanding that the state chief minister Anandiben Patel come personally to accept the memorandum seeking the reservation. Various theories have been floated regarding the genesis of the Patel protest, with even talks that the agitation has blessings of the RSS and the BJP. “There are 117 Patidar members of parliament, so there should be our dominance there”, Hardik said.

This has not deterred the Patels from following their “new leader” whose strength clearly lies in his ability to articulate the woes of the poor farmers and rural folk. A large number of them have also emigrated to the US, the UK and parts of Africa.

“When our groups have been making an attempt to succeed in the spots, indignant mob stopped us by pelting stones at our automobiles, forcing us to retreat”. Chief minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar is from our community and Chandrababu Naidu of Andhra Pradesh is also from our community.