Gujarat election BJP candidates: Last on its list, party makes an exception for Yogesh Patel

Though Patel, who is known to speak his mind, was the last of the 182 contestants named by the party, according to his aides he had started preparing for the election days ago and earlier this week instructed his associates to ready his election office. At Leuva Sheri in Raopura where Patel, who is a Leuva Patidar, lives, the announcement of his candidature was celebrated with the bursting of firecrackers.

A leader in the BJP’s Vadodara city unit said, “The candidature is indeed a surprise. We were expecting Kaka (Yogesh Patel) to be rested as the party is very particular about its recent rules regarding ticket allocation, including age, tenures, and family links with elected representatives and office-bearers. He was not even in the reckoning and his candidature was not proposed by the Parliamentary Board. It seems he was working behind the scenes and had his way.”

Patel said, “I received a call from CR Paatil this morning and the party has asked me to go ahead and file my nomination as the candidate from Manjalpur … I am confident of winning with a big majority.”

In June 2018, Patel, along with Savli MLA Ketan Inamdar and Waghodia MLA Madhu Shrivastav expressed “disappointment” with the party for keeping MLAs from central Gujarat out of the Cabinet. The three MLAs addressed reporters and alleged that bureaucrats were paying no heed to public representatives. Then Deputy CM Nitin Patel and the education minister at the time, Bhupendra Chudasma, were deployed to pacify them.

In March 2019, Patel was made the Minister of State for Narmada while Shrivastav was appointed the chairman of the Gujarat Agro Industries Corporation (GAIC). Patel has always had a channel open with party leaders in positions of power and to date, according to BJP watchers, no chief minister has ignored his invitation to perform the maha aarti at his famous annual Shivratri Yatra in Vadodara.

Patel is known to have close links with former Union minister Maneka Gandhi and the two have often campaigned for each other. Patel started his political career with the Congress in the 1970s and after parting ways with the Congress became an active member of a Vichar Manch named after Sanjay Gandhi. Then, he followed Maneka to the Janta Dal and finally to the BJP. He first became an MLA on a Janta Dal ticket in 1990 from Raopura. In 1995, he joined the BJP and continued to hold the seat until 2012. In the Assembly elections that year, Patel was given the Patidar-dominated Manjalpur constituency that had been created following delimitation.

A senior BJP leader who refused to comment on the exception made for the veteran leader told The Indian Express, “One cannot disagree that this (Patel’s candidature) has set a bad example and can be used as a precedent … There were, however, a few factors at play as the rivalry within the factions of the party’s city unit needed to be nipped in the bud. Each of the factions had propped up its favourite candidate and the choice was becoming tricky. Moreover, Patel was firm on contesting the election and the leadership thought it would be a better choice to continue with Patel instead of encouraging ego wars within.”

Patel is a self-confessed Shiva devotee and has also constructed temples in his constituency. When he was a minister in the Vijay Rupani-led Cabinet, he announced that an 11-foot Shiva statue at the Sursagar Lake in the heart of the city — it was inaugurated in 2002 — would undergo improvements and a facade made of gold would be built for Rs 8 crore. Through the Suvarna Sankalp Foundation that Patel floated in 2018, the work on erecting gold scaffoldings began on Maha Shivratri day in 2021 in Rupani’s presence.