Gujarat’s Patidar agitation spearhead and now State Congress’ working president Hardik Patel on Monday threatened to revive his movement if the State Government did not fulfil its promise of withdrawing criminal cases lodged against the community’s youngsters during his 2015 to 2017 stir.
Addressing a press conference here, the young Turk gave an ultimatum of March 23 to the State Government to fulfil several pending demands, including withdrawal of cases against the Patidar youngsters. He said if need be would quit the Congress to revive his agitation.
Hardik Patel, who himself faces 32 cases including sedition, said he was not referring to charges against him. “At the most, I won’t be able to fight a few elections, this is for the helpless hundreds,” Patel claimed. He asserted, “I am not saying this as a Congress leader but as an agitator.”
“The BJP government has been giving the community a lollipop by continuing assurances on the long-pending demands of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) while doing precious little on the ground,” he said and threatened that he would launch his agitation with the same ferocity as in 2015 if the government did not respond this time.
The working president of Gujarat Congress justified his and the PAAS’ demands regarding reservation for the Patidar community. He said the very fact that the State Government and the Centre had made provisions for a reservation to the poor and backward classes and 10 per cent quota for the economically backward upper castes were evidence of this.
“We have been requesting the government to fulfil their assurances, many from our community like Naresh Patel and even many of the BJP leaders and MLAs have made this request,” Hardik Patel said.
He added, "Anandiben as the chief minister withdrew many cases but the Vijay Rupani-led government has not. If the government has vengeance towards me, be it, but it should withdraw the sedition cases against 202 others."
Hardik said as many as 3,000 to 4,000 were still suffering because of those cases and were unable to find jobs because of this.
Besides withdrawal of criminal cases, the other demands of PAAS include providing jobs to the kin of the 14 Patidar youth who lost their lives during the agitation allegedly during police atrocities.
