After snub, Congress downplays its pursuit of Naresh Patel

Congress was the most aggressive party with a range of leaders, including former GPCC president Bharatsinh Solanki, meeting Patel. Patel also hosted Sharma, Thakor and other Congress leaders at his farmhouse in Rajkot on May 19 and the AICC general secretary had termed the meeting “positive”.

Thakor who claims to have met Patel twice in the recent months told The Indian Express, “I asked Nareshbhai as to why he wanted to join politics while he was doing well in business and commanded respect from his community. He reply that the tyrannical rule prevailing in the country cannot be tolerated and that he wanted to join politics.”

Patel even conceded that he was consulting poll strategist Prashant Kishor and reportedly met top Congress leadership. While Thakor maintains that Naresh Patel had not put any precondition on him joining Congress, highly-placed sources claim that Congress refused to accept certain conditions.

“Patel underlined that he wanted to serve people in the true sense… His demand was that he be allowed to take all important decisions regarding the upcoming Assembly elections and in return he would give everything to unseat the BJP. However, senior Congress leaders from Gujarat were the first to oppose such a proposal. This left Patel with no other option… his ideological convictions would not make him feel comfortable in other outfits,” said a source.

The 56-year-old industrialist from Rajkot mobilised Leuva Patels, who dominate 20 out of 48 Assembly constituencies in Saurashtra region of Gujarat as well as a few others in South Gujarat, around the Khodaldham temple project over the past decade. Leuva and Kadva Patels, the other main sub-caste group of Patidar community, together form the largest organised group of voters in Gujarat and the community is viewed as loyal supporters of the BJP since the mid-1980s.

Congress has been out of power in Gujarat for two-and-a-half decades and party’s Patidar MLAs and leaders were aggressively persuading to facilitate Patel’s entry into the party to boost chances of winning the Assembly polls this year.

On Thursday, Patel said that the idea of joining politics had crossed his mind while reading about freedom fighters during the Covid-19 pandemic. “I read Sardar saheb (Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel) and other freedom fighters deeply and felt that one can serve people by joining politics also,” Patel said.

Citing a survey, Patel said that elders of his community were against his idea even though 80 per cent of youth and 50 per cent of women wanted him to join politics. “I was sensitive to the concerns of the elders of the community… Therefore, I am not joining politics for now,” said Patel, adding Khodaldham would set up an academy to teach politics.

The Congress is still smarting from the decision by Hardik Patel, who led the Patidar quota stir in the state and gave the BJP a scare in the 2017 Assembly elections, to join the BJP. “But we do have good Patidar leaders, including Siddharth Patel (former GPCC president), Harshad Ribadiya, Lalit Vasoya, Lalit Kagathara and Kirit Patel,” asserts a Congress leader.

“Nareshbhai is totally free to make his own decisions and I respect his decision,” the GPCC president said, adding, “Had he joined Congress, the party would have certainly benefited… Sonama sugandh bhali hot (It would have added scent to gold). The Congress is preparing to win 125 seats in the upcoming Assembly elections and not sitting cross-legged thinking we will be able to win election only if ‘X’ or ‘Y’ individual joins the party.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has addressed at least half-a-dozen events organised by Patidar community over the past six months in an attempt to reconnect the sections swayed by the anti-BJP tone of the quota agitation. The saffron party also replaced Vijay Rupani, a Jain, with Bhupendra Patel, a Patidar, as Chief Minister in September 2021.