Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said on Sunday that it was Patidar quota agitation leader Hardik Patel who needed to clear his stand on the demand for OBC reservation for the community.
Taking a dig at Patel’s ultimatum to the Congress to make its stand clear by November 3 on the reservation issue, Mr. Rupani alleged that though the Congress had never promised reservation to the Patidars under the OBC quota, Mr. Patel had still asked the community to support the party in the upcoming Assembly polls.
The Chief Minister claimed that the Congress had already made it clear that it would give reservation to the Patidars only under the economically backward classes (EBC) quota. “It is Hardik who needs to clear his stand, because the Congress’s stand is already clear,” he told mediapersons here, after inaugurating the State BJP’s new media centre.
“On the other side, we have already passed a bill to give a 10% EBC quota to the non-reserved communities. Whatever has been given has been given by us, while the Congress has only played politics on the issue,” Mr. Rupani said.
Mr. Patel had asked the Congress on Saturday to make it clear by November 3 how it would ensure reservation for the Patidar community.
In a tweet, he had also warned that the Patidars would oppose Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi during his visit to Surat on November 3, as it did to BJP president Amit Shah at one of his public gatherings in the city.
