There was chaos at BJP chief Amit Shah's meeting with the leaders of the Patidar community in Surat on Thursday evening as supporters of Hardik Patel went on a rampage, chanting his name and vandalising the furniture. The crowd started chanting "Hardik, Hardik" as Shah and Union minister Purshottam Rupala was speaking on the stage. Chaos prevailed outside the venue as well as in Mota Varraccha area, where Patidar community members from the locality hurled stones at police. The function, supposed to be the show of strength of BJP in the Patidar stronghold, wound up hastily within minutes with Patel leaders cutting short their speeches while Shah could speak for hardly four minutes amid sloganeering. The ruckus started even before the commencement of the function with the Patel quota agitators raising slogans like "Jai Sardar, Jai Patidar" and hailing Hardik, even as they damaged furniture at the venue and flung chairs in air. Though police detained several members of Patidar community, the protest continued. The slogan shouting continued even when top BJP leaders like Shah and Rupani started their respective address, forcing them to cut short their speech. While Shah wound up within four minutes, Rupani too could not speak for more than three minutes. The organisers abruptly declared the programme closed and the leaders were whisked away. Prominent Patel businessmen in the city had decided to felicitate BJP leaders of their community in the presence of Amit Shah. This felicitation comes in the wake of the upcoming Gujarat assembly polls. While Hardik Patel-led Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) has asked the community to oppose the felicitation programme, city-based prominent businessmen have formed a group called the ‘Patidar Abhivadan Samiti’ to honour the new state BJP chief Jitu Vaghani, deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel and union ministers of the Patel community. WATCH: Chanting Hardik Patel's name,supporters vandalise chairs & create chaos at Amit Shah's Patidar meet, in Surat pic.twitter.com/2VoCwstx22 — ANI (@ANI_news) September 8, 2016 Patel had challenged the BJP government, saying "If you hurt this community, the government will collapse". (With inputs from agencies)
