Hardik Patel, a Patidar leader who resigned from the Congress on Wednesday, said he hasn’t decided whether to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but urged people not to vote for his former party, saying it never speaks out on Hindu issues and is “too much into caste-based politics.”
Patel, who had issued multiple appeals urging people to vote for the Congress in the 2017 Gujarat assembly elections, said on Thursday that the grand old party should not be supported.
The Congress never speaks out on issues affecting Hindus, such as the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) or the alleged discovery of a “Shivling” in a mosque in Varanasi. “Moreover, the Gujarat Congress is overly concerned with caste politics. Patel said, “I wasted three years in this party.”
Patel, who joined the Congress in 2019 and was named a working president of the Gujarat Congress in 2020, resigned from the party on Wednesday. The 28-year-old politician was harshly critical of the Congress and its leaders in a one-page resignation letter, claiming that they lacked a roadmap for the people, were non-serious, and acted as if they despised Gujarat and Gujaratis.
Hardik Patel has been in talks with the BJP, according to a BJP leader. He is accused by Congress leaders of planning to switch to the BJP in order to have the multiple cases filed against him for the Patidar agitation dismissed.
Patel, on the other hand, insisted he hadn’t made up his mind.
“As of now, I have not made any decision on whether to join the BJP or the AAP,” the Patel Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) leader said.
He expressed gratitude to Congress for appointing him as Gujarat’s working president. “However, what good is it if you aren’t given any work to do?” he asked.
Gujarat Congress chief Jagdish Thakor said Patel’s allegations were unfounded and intended to harm the Congress. In an interview with the media in Rajkot on Thursday, Thakor claimed that Patel was following a script written by the BJP. He claimed that his resignation letter was written at the BJP’s Gujarat headquarters in Kamalam.
