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Journalism of Courage
On July 30, while addressing a public function of the Patidar community in Mehsana district, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel said his government would look into the possibility of making parental consent mandatory in love marriages. While saying so, the CM acknowledged that the idea had come from a senior minister in his government, Rushikesh Patel.
A Kadva Patidar who listed real estate and farming as occupations in his poll affidavit, Rushikesh is a four-time MLA from Visnagar constituency of Mehsana district in north Gujarat. The 61-year-old first became a minister in the state government in September 2021. That was when the BJP completely overhauled its Gujarat Ministry ahead of the elections, starting with replacing Vijay Rupani with Bhupendra Patel as CM.
After he won the December 2022 Assembly elections, Rushikesh was retained, as was Bhupendra Patel, and entrusted with important portfolios like Health and Family Welfare; Law, Justice, Legislative and Parliamentary Affairs; Medical Education; and Higher and Technical Education.
Apart from that, Rushikesh is the official spokesperson of the government and briefs the media on decisions taken at weekly Cabinet meetings.
Politically, Rushikesh’s induction in the ministry in 2021 was seen as a balancing act, after the ouster of veteran Kadva Patidar leader and then Deputy CM Nitin Patel. In May, when Bhupendra Patel’s son fell ill and the CM skipped the Gujarat Gaurav Divas celebrations, Rushikesh presided over the state event at Jamnagar on his behalf.
His idea of parental consent in love marriages, incidentally, isn’t a first. In the Budget Session of the Gujarat Assembly, BJP Kalol MLA Fatesinh Chauhan and Congress Vav MLA Geniben Thakor had both demanded that parents’ permission be made compulsory when children get married to partners of their choice.
A father of two children, both of them married, Rushikesh’s rise has been steady in the BJP. He won as an MLA for the first time in 2007 after the BJP decided to replace incumbent Prahlad Patel from Visnagar, who had been named in the 2002 riot case of Dipda Darwaja. The case was among the nine major ones whose investigation and trials were monitored by the Supreme Court.
Between 2009 and 2015, Rushikesh served as the Mehsana BJP district president. He also held other posts such as chairman of the Visnagar Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) and president of the Mehsana District Cricket Association.
Underlining his importance for the party, a senior BJP leader said, “The ouster of Nitinbhai (Patel) from the government was quite a significant step by the state BJP leadership. The appointment of Rushikesh Patel as a senior minister was to preempt any discontent in the Kadva Patidar community within the party, and in Mehsana district.”
The Kadva sub-caste of the Patidar community is dominant in the north Gujarat region, especially in the districts of Mehsana and Patan. During the Patidar quota agitation, Rushikesh’s office in Visnagar had been vandalised by a mob, allegedly led by the Patidar stir leader Hardik Patel.
A Sessions Court in Visnagar had convicted Hardik in the case in 2018, sentencing him to two years. Rushikesh had testified as a witness in the case.
Now, a BJP MLA from Viramgam, Hardik is all praise for Rushikesh. “He is a genuine person and never holds any grudge against me. In fact, the first government work in my constituency was granted by him. He granted an arts college in the Mandal region of my constituency. Even inside the Gujarat Assembly, whenever I want to speak on any subject concerning my constituency at length, he has allotted more time to me to speak. He is the prabhari (minister in-charge) of my district (Ahmedabad) as well. As a senior leader, he provides all the support and guidance to a junior like me,” Hardik says.
