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The agitating Patidar community is now taking lead in celebrating the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on October 31. While the Vadodara unit of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) has declared that it will mark the Iron Man’s birth anniversary with a tribute to a bust of Patel that was recently renovated by a city activist, the community has warned the ruling BJP against fielding Patel candidates with the “Patidar” tag. In fact, the community has said it will “support and felicitate” BJP leaders who chose to dump the party and contest the civic polls as independent candidates.
On Thursday evening, after the meeting of Vadodara chapter of PAAS, Patidar leaders said that the community had decided to mark Sardar Patel birth anniversary at the Panchayat office compound in Harni in the city where the bust of Sardar Patel was renovated last week by a city activist, following neglect from the administration. A statement from PAAS stated that the BJP, which is trying to overpower the Patidar agitation by usurping the “Patidar” tag for its Patel candidates, must stand warned. The letter states, “Those leaders who break away from the BJP will be felicitated in public by the Patidar community and we will work for their victory.”
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Paresh Patel, convenor of Vadodara PAAS, said that the community would make such break-away leaders sign affidavits avowing never to return to the party after winning the seat or face a case of cheating. “We are able to see the ploy of the BJP to tag their Patel candidates as Patidars in order to mislead the community members as having our support. We will not allow this to happen. In fact, we are giving an open declaration that those BJP leaders who break away from the party and contest the polls independently will receive public support from the Patidar community,” he said.
Meanwhile, in Bhadam village in Narmada, where a statue of Sardar Patel was constructed in the late 1980s by the villagers, mostly comprising the Patel community, a banner warns politicians from stepping into the village to pay their “hollow tributes”. The banner states, “Entry for all politicians and political party workers is banned in this village. Anyone who enters does so at their own risk. No politician is supposed to step in to ask for votes or arrive on October 31 to offer any floral tributes to this Sardar Patel statue.”
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