RAJKOT: The Patidars had been waiting, with many even becoming restive, for a surge in the community’s political agenda and to be part of the state governance.
With an eye on the 2022 assembly election, a meeting of five Patidar religious and community organizations, held in Kagvad at Khodaldham on Saturday, also took a bold step towards erasing the underlying schism within the community.
It decided to abolish separate identities for Leuva and Kadva factions uniting both under the broad umbrella of ‘Patidar only’.
This was one of the agendas that a similar meeting held earlier at Umiyadham in Unjha, headquarter of Kadva Patidar community, a few months before had set for Saturday’s meeting.
Khodaldham, the biggest temple of goddess Khodal located around 65km from Rajkot city, is also considered a headquarter of Leuva Patidar community of Gujarat.
However, the tone and intent was set much before the actual meeting took place by Naresh Patel, head of Khodaldham himself, who indirectly expressed the desire to find a next chief ministerial candidate from among the Patidar community, while talking to media persons.
“The Patidar community is very big and the meeting is organized to see that the community gets more importance politically and also in administration,” Patel, who had hosted the meeting, said.
The elections are scheduled at the end of 2022.
Patel also listed out why Patidar community should get more importance and named a few factors like its population, influence in every field, besides being the biggest taxpayers.
He said for the unification of the community, a federation will be created, the name of which along with its constitution will be announced soon.
Parrying a query on political ambitions, Patel said: “All communities desire to have a chief minister from their own.
So, definitely we too desire that a Patidar becomes the next CM,” adding, “After Keshubhai (Patel) the community did not get the leader of same level.” He also lambasted the present administration for failing to manage the Covid-19 pandemic situation.
When asked about Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) entry into Gujarat, Patel said that the prospects of a third party in the state’s political history has not been very sunny.
“But looking at the experiment done by AAP in Delhi and other states they will be benefited in the next election,” he quickly added.
During the meeting the leaders also resolved to ask the government to revive the non reserved commission that was formed to counter ‘Patidar Anamat Andolan’ during the Patidar agitation in the state.
The meeting started at around 11am and ended around 2.30pm.
Briefing the media again after the meeting, Patel said that the the community organizations will support the members who are already in politics to get ‘appropriate’ place in the political strata, while they will seek ‘work as per capability’ for those members in the administration.