AHMEDABAD: Amid a steady drop in Covid-19 positive cases in Gujarat, there has been a flurry of political activity in the state with speculation of major changes in the state BJP.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is set to up the ante with Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s visit on Monday.
The ebbing of the deadly corona wave apparently has given way to a flood of political action with eyes on the 2022 assembly polls.
And although the BJP took pains to stress that the visit of national leader and Gujarat in-charge Bhupender Yadav was a “party building” exercise as organizational meetings could not be held during the pandemic second wave, speculation refused to die down that Yadav was in Gujarat to prepare groundwork for a change in guard in the state leadership.” Coinciding with Yadav’s visit and adding further fuel to the speculation fire, 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’.
Naresh Patel, head of Khodaldham 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.
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 the same level.” He also lambasted the present administration for failing to manage the Covid-19 pandemic situation.
Adding to the bubbling political cauldron, AAP on Saturday announced that party president and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal will visit Gujarat on Monday.
Party leaders said Kejriwal will set the tone for the 2022 Gujarat assembly election by spelling out the party’s plans for the state.
AAP registered a decent showing in the recent local body election, winning seats in the municipal corporation, municipality and panchayat polls.