Naresh Patel met Congress high command, says MLA

“Our job was to organise the meeting. We did that and flew back to Gujarat as Rahul Gandhi was to address a public meeting in Dahod where we had to be present. We don’t know what Naresh Patel did after that,” said the MLA.

Talking to reporters after landing in Rajkot Tuesday evening, Naresh Patel said that he met the four MLAs. “I met them at the Rajkot airport and we sat together for a long time in Delhi airport also,” Naresh Patel said but denied that he met the Congress high command.

“They (the MLAs) could have met. They were to meet Rahul Gandhi in Dahod today also and hold discussions. But I got no message so far nor has anybody contacted me,” he said.

Kagathara, Dudhat, Vasoya and Kirit Patel are Congress MLAs from Tankara (Morbi district), Savarkundla (Amreli), Dhoraji (Rajkot) and Patan (Patan) respectively. All of them are Patidars.

Naresh Patel said that he had flown to Delhi from Rajkot and from Delhi to Benaras (Varansi) on a personal visit. He said that he returned to Rajkot via Mumbai on Tuesday.

He said that the four MLAs has proposed that he join Congress. “The MLAs told me that they will meet Rahul Gandhi and hold discussion and then they will extend an invite to me,” he added.

Patel, who is chairman of Shree Khodaldham Trust (SKT), the religious trust of the Leuva Patel sub-caste group of Patidar community, said that he would soon announce his decision to join politics.

Patel confirmed that he met poll strategist Prashant Kishor when the latter was sharing his roadmap with the top Congress leadership for reviving the party. Even as Kishor subsequently declined to formally join Congress, Patel said that the poll strategist’s decision will have no bearing
on him.

On Tuesday, Patel maintained that he is positive about political parties. However, he said that he had no invite to meet Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who is visiting Rajkot on Wednesday to address a public meeting.