Modi’s babu offered me ₹1,200 crore and post of BJYM president in 2016, claims Hardik Patel

The leader of the Patidar Amanat Andolan Samiti (PAAS), Hardik Patel, who is going to join Congress on Tuesday, claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had offered him ₹1,200 crore and the post of the national president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha in 2016.

In a freewheeling conversation with National Herald at a modest office located on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, Patel claimed when he was lodged in Surat District Central jail at Lajpore, former Chief Principal Secretary to former Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, K Kailashnathan, who is serving as Chief Principal Secretary at CMO, visited him in the jail and offered the whopping sum and the top post of the BJP’s youth wing as truce gestures.

Patel claimed that K Kailashnathan, who likes to be called as KK, made the offer at the behest of then Chief Minister Anandi Ben Patel.

“BJP wanted me to call off the quota stir, but I immediately rejected it,” said Patel.

A response from K Kailashnathan has been sought and the story will be updated if NH hears back from him.

When asked about the proof of his claims, Patel challenged the Gujarat Government to make public the CCTV footage of the time. “Everything will come out. People will get to know whether Kailashnathan had visited me in the jail or not,” said the 25-year-old youth leader.

A 1979 batch IAS Officer, K Kailashnathan is regarded as the blue-eyed officer of PM Modi, who in turn had served as the Chief Minister of Gujarat till May 2014. As per whispers in the bureaucratic circles of Ahmedabad, KK is Modi’s man in Gujarat who keeps a watch on even CM Vijay Rupani and reports regularly to PM about the state of affairs in his home state.

The importance of Kailashnathan can be understood by the fact that he got retired as Additional Chief Secretary in the Gujarat Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) on May 31, 2013, but a special post was created for him in the CMO as Chief Principal Secretary just to have him around in the power corridors of the state government.

A postgraduate from University of Wales, the 64-year-old IAS officer has been given multiple extensions by the successive BJP government in Gujarat. As per a report published in Ahmedabad Mirror on December 28, 2017, Modi’s trusted babu has been given another extension to work in the post till December 2019. As per the news report, it has been more than 10 years since KK has been serving in the CMO.

“During his tenure, he has seen several elections and key socio-political and economic events,” reads the report published by Ahmedabad Mirror.

In 2016, when KK met Hardik Patel in jail, Anandi Patel, who comes from Hardik’s community, was the Chief Minister of Gujarat succeeding Narendra Modi.

A bête noire of BJP’s national president Amit Shah, Anandi Ben, though, could not survive and resigned through a Facebook post on August 2016 citing her age as the reason.

When asked if he regretted the decision to reject the Rs 1,200 crore offer and the party post, Hardik, surrounded by some of his trusted aides, noted that money was, indeed, a personal need.

He, however, added, “I have enough money for my meals and clothes. I do not need more than that. Although, I am married now, my necessities have not grown.”