Hardik Patel, former Gujarat Congress working president, joins BJP
Highlights
- Hardik Patel had led a violent agitation seeking quota for his Patidar community in 2015
- He has been a strong critic of the BJP in the past
- The then BJP government in Gujarat had even booked Patel in several cases
Hardik Patel, former Gujarat Congress working president, on Thursday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Gandhinagar today, moths before the Assembly polls in the western state. He joined the saffron party in the presence of the party's Gujarat unit chief CR Patil, former deputy CM Nitin Patel and scores of leaders.
Patel ahead of joining the BJP tweeted that he is going to "start a new chapter keeping in mind the interests of the nation, region, society and community".
"I will work as a small soldier in the development work of the nation being carried out under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi," the Patidar leader said.
Who is Hardik Patel
Hardik Patel, 28, came into the limelight after he led the Patidar quota stir in 2015. Hardik joined the Congress in 2019 despite his public promise of not entering politics. He was appointed as the working president of the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) in July 2020.
He resigned from that party on May 18 after claiming in a letter to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi that the party 'only played to the role of a roadblock' over certain key issues in the country and was 'merely reduced to opposing everything'. He added that the grand old party has no vision for the state where it is out of power since 1995.
The ruling BJP is hopeful that the entry of Patel, once a staunch critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, will bolster its position in the state where it has won every election held since 1995. The Patidars constitute over one-sixth of Gujarat's population of 6.5 crores. Securing the votes of Patidars is crucial for any political party to win the polls as a shift in their stand can swing the result.
Gujarat, the home state of PM Modi and Amit Shah, is slated to go to the polls by the end of this year.
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