Women act as vanguard of Patel quota agitation in Gujarat

Patel women have been asked to head the stir because policeattacked men during the last month’s rally.

As the Patel agitation for reservation benefits is escalating by the day, Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel on Thursday invoked the fear of conflicts in the State, in an obvious attempt to defuse the rising tension. Without naming any community, the Chief Minister said, “Those who are indulging in such agitation are ignorant of the heavy price Gujarat paid in 1980s during the anti-reservation riots in 1981-82 and 1985.

“We have to live with each other in the villages, towns and cities. We must not do anything that can create tensions between communities and trigger conflicts between castes or communities,” she said at a government function in the State capital Gandhinagar.

However, the agitation launched by youngsters of the dominant Patel community is gaining strength with thousands of women armed with

thalis and rolling pins giving a tough time to the ruling party leaders, driving them out of social or public functions.

On Thursday, Patel women forced the BJP to cancel meetings or social functions at half a dozen places across the State. In Naroda, Ahmedabad, party MLA Nirmala Waghvani fled the venue of a function in her constituency when more than 100 women of the Patel community stormed the venue with plates and rolling pins or spoons.

At Himatnagar in Gandhinagar district, women and youngsters drove out the BJP leaders, who were holding a meeting with local leaders and party workers to start the screening process for potential candidates for the local bodies’ elections to be held in two months.

Similarly, on Wednesday, hundreds of Patel women forced the BJP to cancel its events at four different towns in Saurashtra, as the party leaders and ministers did not turn up at the venues after seeing the fury of the women in Rajkot, Amreli, Sabarkantha and Surendranagar district.

At Halvad in Surendranagar district, more than 100 women gate-crashed into the government circuit house where BJP leaders were holding a meeting. The women, armed with steel plates, rolling pins and spoons, forced the party observers to leave the venue immediately.

The ruling party had to cancel a similar exercise of observers’ meeting with local leaders at a number of places in north Gujarat and Saurashtra regions.

“It is becoming serious now. The government seems to have no clue how to deal with the volatile situation. The women have taken over the agitation now,” said a top BJP politician, who had to flee from a social event after a group of women stormed the event.

In Vadodara, the meeting of senior Minister Vijay Saurabh Patel was stalled after women created a ruckus and held an acrimonious protest shouting, “we want reservation, give us reservation.”

A prominent Patel leader of the BJP, Purushottam Rupala, who was hounded out last week from two events in north Gujarat, had skipped a party function in Rajkot on Wednesday evening as more than 200 women gathered at the venue shouting slogans while waving thalis and rolling pins.

“We have asked our women to be at the forefront of the agitation because the police attacked us during the last month rally in which eight Patel community members were killed in police firing,” said Varun Patel, a member of the Sardar Patel Group (SPG), one of the two outfits that launched the agitation seeking reservation benefits for the Patel community.