Naresh Patel: The Leuva Patel kingmaker who is reluctant to join the electoral field

The SKT hosted at least 25 garbas across the state this year, two of which were attended by AAP bigwigs—Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal at Rajkot and MP Raghav Chadha at Surat.

Naresh has been wooed by political parties of all hues, notwithstanding the fact that Patidars have largely voted for the BJP over the past few decades.

He has been pitching for Patidars to play a larger role in the system and had actively mediated with the Gujarat government for the withdrawal of police cases against Patidars involved in the quota agitation of 2015 led by Hardik Patel—now in the BJP.

Since December, when Naresh declared his intent of joining politics, his friends, supporters and trustees of the SKT—the powerful organisation of Leuva Patels who form the single-largest vote-bank in Saurashtra and south Gujarat—began testing waters for his launch into politics. Meanwhile, he was wooed by Congress, BJP and AAP. Sources close to Naresh say he was close to joining Congress, even as BJP reportedly offered him “a cabinet rank” minister’s post in the incumbent Gujarat government.

His talks with Congress were largely via political strategist Prashant Kishor. But they fell through, according to sources, as the party establishment did not agree to some of his preconditions concerning the Gujarat Assembly elections. In June, he withdrew from the political battlefield and instead announced that under the aegis of the Sardar Patel Cultural Foundation (SPCF)—another NGO he heads—he would launch an academy to train future politicians. In a later interview with The Indian Express, he said that if someone of his stature joins any political party—not just Congress—he would have to be considered the CM face.

The youngest of businessman Ravjibhai Patel’s six children, Naresh studied commerce and is the managing director of Patel Brass Works (PBW), the firm founded by his father that today manufactures high-end engine components with applications ranging from automobiles to aircraft industries.

Like his late father, Patel also took up community and charity work early in life. The man who once dreamt of joining the armed forces, started providing financial assistance to poor patients through his Sadjyota Charitable Trust.

He founded SKT in 2010 in the backdrop of the dissent of Patidar politicians—including former chief minister Keshubhai Patel and former home minister Gordhan Zadaphia—against Narendra Modi, who had replaced Keshubhai as Gujarat CM in 2001. SKT emerged as an umbrella organisation of Patidars that boasted of hosting Keshubhai on the same stage as Modi’s Patidar ministers, including Anandiben. Naresh would regularly draw huge crowds at the site of the then under-construction Khodaldham temple, with SKT claiming five lakh attendees at its inauguration in January 2017.

Naresh has also been attempting social reforms by setting up an alternative resolution centre to iron out disputes before they could reach the courts, and through SKT’s monthly magazine, Khodaldham Smruti.

Such is his popularity that youth of the community protested on the roads when he resigned as the SKT chairman in 2018, forcing him to retract.