The Patel punch

Winter days would normally see residents of Tragad village retiring to their homes early. But, on November 21, Tragad, a 90-minute drive from Ahmedabad, looked different. Its 3,500 people were on a fiery high. Amid them was the firebrand leader of the Patidar agitation, 24-year-old Hardik Patel.

The area is a BJP stronghold. But at the village chowk, the young and the old, men and women squatted on the mats laid out on the village road to hear Patel speak. Until August 25, 2015, when he addressed a massive gathering of the Patidars in Ahmedabad—the Maha Kranti rally—which later led to a violent agitation demanding the community’s inclusion in the OBC quota, nobody knew Patel’s oration skills. But now, people are keen to know his mind after his electoral foray. On November 21, they waited in anticipation that he would announce the support of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) to the Congress. That did not happen at Tragad.

He started addressing the crowd, congratulating them for getting good rates for their crop. They burst into laughter, comprehending the sarcasm in his words. “Is there any Patidar from your village who has become a talati [revenue officer] or a police inspector?” he asked them. They replied with a loud “no”. The unemployment faced by the Patidar youth, in part due to lack of reservation, had forced him to start the agitation in 2015.

Patidars are around 12 per cent of the electorate in Gujarat. Patel has been successful in gathering large crowds in the Saurashtra region and North Gujarat from where the Patidar agitation began. Some say that in many constituencies the real battle will be between the PAAS and the BJP. Patel targets his enemy: “Development has not even taken birth in Gujarat. Saheb [Modi] talks of the Gujarat Model. If that was the case, BJP would not have required leaders from other parts of the country to come and campaign in Gujarat.” He told the crowd that whatever the community was having now was the result of their hard work, not because of any gift from Modi.

In Gujarat, there are not many who dare to speak against Modi or BJP president Amit Shah. Patel is an exception. “I do not put a suffix of bhai or ji with his name [Modi], because he is wrong,” Patel continued. He referred to Shah as another ‘General Dyer’ (who ordered the Jallianwala Bagh massacre) for allegedly ordering the police to act firmly against the Patidar agitators, which led to 14 deaths. Patel also did not spare Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, he called him “pani vagarna”—spineless. Patel cannot contest this assembly election as the constitution mandates that a candidate be at least 25. Yet, he could be one of the biggest game changers in the contest.

Not that he has no problems. His close aides deserted him. An alleged ‘sex CD’ of Patel was circulated by rivals. A Delhi-based lawyer complained about it in the National Commission for Women. Complaints were also lodged against him for holding a massive rally in Rajkot without permission. The Patidar Organisation Committee (POC), which has six socio-religious outfits under its banner, alleged that the Patidar agitation had become his personal stir. The POC also says that the reservation formula the Congress has given the Patidars is not constitutionally viable.

Patel seems undeterred. He slammed media reports that the Gujarat government had withdrawn cases against the Patidar agitators. On December 3, he held a rally in Surat where more than 50,000 people turned up. It was dubbed as the anger of textile traders and workers in the city’s diamond cutting industry, who were hit badly by demonetisation and GST reforms. The massive turnout at his rally gave the jitters to local BJP leaders. Whether the high turnout will transform into anti-BJP votes remains to be seen.