Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti changes its stand on Rahul Gandhi’s visit

The Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) spearheading the community’s stir in Gujarat which had threatened to do an ‘Amit Shah’ to Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi when he tours South Gujarat this week, moderated it’s stand on Monday. “We will neither support nor oppose Rahul Gandhi’s visit”, said Alpesh Kathiria, PAAS convenor after a meeting with the state Congress leadership on Monday.

But  their chief Hardik Patel, stuck to his guns. “I want reservation for my community and not at the cost of others, let it be clear. You move heaven or earth, I don’t care”, he is reported to have told the Congress leadership adding “and it must hold judicial scrutiny”.

In September last year PAAS volunteers had disrupted a BJP show of strength in Surat forcing both the Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and BJP Chief Amit Shah to cut short their speeches and leave the venue.

Under attack from the BJP which is smarting at the erosion of one of it’s key Patidar vote banks, Hardik Patel had served notice to the Congress on Sunday to come clean on it’s stance on the Patidar reservation issue and related demands by November 3, just around the time when the Congress vice president is scheduled to visit south Gujarat.

The Congress, which seeks to harness the anti-BJP turmoil in ethnic groups within the state had called for a meeting with the agitating Patidar leadership at their state headquarters on Monday. Both the PAAS and the Congress leadership described the meeting as positive and resolved to carry forward their ‘dialogue’.

Alpesh who spoke to media after a marathon three-and-a-half hour meeting with Congress leadership in Ahmedabad to understand the legal aspects of proposal by Congress to give 20 per cent reservations for Patels and other upper castes, instead of 10 per cent proposed by the BJP government.

The PAAS team, visited the state Congress headquarters in Ahmedabad and held discussions with state Congress Chief Bharatsinh Solanki, Siddharth Patel and Arjun Modhvadia. “We are satisfied with the discussions we had with Congress leadership today...We will now meet up with Hardik and our entire team and decide if we want to meet Rahul or not on November 3,” Kathiria said.

Kathiria said that PAAS had put forth five points for discussions. The first is, the officials responsible for instigating violence on August 25, 26 of 2015 should be punished. The police had resorted to lathi charge and arrested Hardik Patel from the venue of a mega rally of the Patidar community in Ahmedabad. “The Congress promised us a SIT and that all those responsible would be punished. Our next demand was withdrawal of all the cases against Patel youth involved in agitation, government jobs and financial aid to the next of families of the 14 youngsters who died in the agitation and statutory status of Commission for Unreserved Classes,” Kathiria said.

The Patel leader said that Congress has agreed to all these points and promised that if it comes to power, it would withdraw all the cases against Patel youth, including sedition; extend a financial aid of ₹35 lakh from the government and jobs to next of the deceased as well as set aside ₹2000 crore for Commission for unreserved classes after according it statutory status.

“On the core issue of reservations to Patels, we had almost a two-hour-long discussion and we have now decided to consult experts on the technical and legal aspects so that it can stand the constitutional scrutiny,” Kathiria said.

Later speaking to media, Hardik Patel said that the Patidars are in no way demanding reservation at the cost of any other community. Taking a dig at the 10 per cent reservation given by the state government for the Economically Backwards Category, he said that the reservation was struck down by the High Court as the state government had not carried out the required survey for the same and the reservation is now stuck in the Supreme Court. In a virtual message to the BJP, he said that the Congress is not our mai-baap . We are talking to them as per our right to speak to the party in opposition because the ruling BJP is not prepared to listen to us. He described the talks with the Congress as satisfactory and said that their core panel will now meet to take stock of things. “If Congress convinces us, we will go with them. But we will not go with the BJP, even if our heads are chopped off and we are sent to jail. We cannot align with those who fired bullets on our chest, urinated in front of our women and insulted the descendants of Sardar Patel who have helped the BJP for a quarter century with both votes and notes’.

Hardik said that they have sought time till November 7 to meet constitutional and legal experts to finalise their stance. “We also intend to invite two retired judges and people from Rajasthan who have been fighting for reservations for the last few years”, he added.