After his show of strength in Chief Minister Vijay Rupani’s Assembly constituency of Rajkot West, the Patidar agitation leader Hardik Patel on Sunday held a massive rally in Surat, where more than 50,000 people turned up for his roadshow.
Addressing the crowd, Mr. Patel exhorted members of his community to vote out the BJP in the Assembly polls and bring in a government which would provide quota, jobs and work for the farmers and the poor.
“The election is a people of Gujarat versus BJP battle and it should be victory of the people, not defeat of anyone,” Mr. Patel told the gathering, mainly consisting of young Patidar members, who are rallying behind the 24-year-old leader, who has been spearheading the agitation for quota in jobs and education for the community in Gujarat.
“We are all here to fight our battle against those who have killed 14 members of the Patidar community during the agitation in 2015. They [BJP and the government] made every effort to finish us but we are all united and fighting,” Mr. Patel said amid the chorus of Jay Sardar Jay Patidar chants by the crowd.
Mr. Patel’s 10-km roadshow from Katargam to Yogi Chawk in the diamond city proved a bigger crowd-puller than the roadshow of Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, who was campaigning for the BJP candidate from Hajira, and attracted a larger crowd than Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s public rally in Bharuch, around 75 km from Surat.
State-wide campaign
Mr. Patel has been campaigning across the State but mostly in Patidar-dominated pockets to create an anti-BJP atmosphere before the voting. Earlier, he had told presspersons that the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) had accepted the quota formula prepared by the Congress, which intends to give quota to the Patidars after it is voted to power.
