Ahmedabad, June 2: Patidar leader Hardik Patel on Thursday said he will work as a foot soldier of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ahead of joining the Bharatiya Janata Party.
In a tweet on Thursday morning, Patel, who recently quit Congress, said:
राष्ट्रहित, प्रदेशहित, जनहित एवं समाज हित की भावनाओं के साथ आज से नए अध्याय का प्रारंभ करने जा रहा हूँ। भारत के यशस्वी प्रधानमंत्री श्री नरेन्द्र भाई मोदी जी के नेतृत्व में चल रहे राष्ट्र सेवा के भगीरथ कार्य में छोटा सा सिपाही बनकर काम करूँगा।
— Hardik Patel (@HardikPatel_) June 2, 2022
Months ahead of the Gujarat election, Patel had quit the Congress on May 18, and had slammed the “senior leadership” of the party in his resignation letter to the Congress President.
He had also mentioned in his resignation letter, his dissatisfaction with the Congress’ stand on issues like Ram Mandir, revocation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, and implementation of GST.
Patel, 28, had led the Patidar reservation agitation in Gujarat in 2015. In 2019, he joined the Congress.
He had a key role in organising several rallies across Gujarat on the issue of reservation for the Patel community. The protests also turned violent, forcing the Gujarat government to impose a curfew and call in the Indian Army.
The then Chief Minister Anandiben Patel had to step down from her post due to the agitations. The cases against his included a sedition charge.
He joined the Congress in 2019, and was made a working president of the Gujarat unit in 2020. Congress, which had improved its performance in the state in 2017 in the wake of the Patidar movement, even as the BJP returned to power.
In the assembly elections in 2017, BJP had won 99 seats and Congress won 77 in the 182 member assembly.
Since then, the numbers of Congress MLAs has gone down to 63 due to defections and defeat in the by-polls, and BJP has gone up to 111.
