Can't Meet Rahul Gandhi, Can Only Send Best Wishes To Him: Hardik Patel

Ahmedabad: Young Gujarat leader Hardik Patel may have decided to carpool with the Congress for next month's election, but is clear that his support to the party does not provide for joint appearances with Rahul Gandhi.

Speaking exclusively to NDTV on the outskirts of Ahmedabad between public meetings, Hardik Patel averred, "Rahul is coming tomorrow (to Ahmedabad). I don't plan to meet him. I can only send him by best wishes."

At 24, Hardik Patel, who turned into the lighting rod of the powerful Patidar community two years ago, is coming out swinging against the BJP for next month's election. But the Patels or Patidars have also warned that too close an affiliation with the Congress will impugn his credibility. For two decades, the Patels helped re-elect the BJP. The older generations among them are still wary of switching sides. It is the youth who Hardik Patel with his zippy one-liners and impassioned speech relates to. And even among them, he must guard against fissures easily created by parties like the BJP who can offer his close aides a chance to run for election.
 The BJP, which has held Gujarat for an uninterrupted 22 years, has accused Hardik Patel of serving as "the B-team of the Congress". The party's top leaders say Hardik Patel, too young to run for office himself, is hungry for power and has traded his community's best interests for scraps from the Congress' table.

"I am the B-team only of the janta (people)," he retorted today, adding, "Gujarat does not belong to the BJP."

Yesterday, he announced his support to the Congress after securing what he describes as a workable solution to his single demand: that Gujarat's affirmative action policies be extended to the Patels, who form 14% of the population.  The Supreme Court allows a maximum of 50% reservation of government jobs and college seats based on caste. Gujarat already uses that entire quota.  The Congress has promised that if it is elected, it will extend reservation to the Patels after listing them as a "special category" under a section the constitution that is exempt from judicial scrutiny.

The BJP's top leaders including Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, however, have disparaged the agreement as an attempt "to fool the people and themselves" and one that will be defeated in a legal challenge.

The Patels, once a prosperous land-owning lot, have found their wealth if not their standing considerably whittled over the years as Gujarat moved towards rapid industrialization.  For this, Hardik Patel says, they must hold the BJP accountable.

There are nine Patel ministers in the current government; a third of the BJP's law-makers are from the community.  The disproportionate representation evidences the importance of the community.

Gujarat votes on December 9 and 14. Results will be counted on December 18 and will be used to gauge if Prime Minister Narendra Modi's bumper public approval has been hit by the botched rollout of the national sales tax or GST, praised worldwide as a much-needed reform, but one that hit hard small traders, including in Gujarat, because of its confusing structure, which has since been rearranged.