Gujarat polls: Anandiben spouse Mafatlal alerted PM Modi of Patel ‘disaffection’

GANDHINAGAR: The husband of former Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel, Mafatlal Patel, had in 2015 alerted Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the ‘discontent’ among Patidars and requested his personal intervention for ending it. After BJP suffered a huge erosion in the local body polls in Gujarat in 2015, Patel wrote a letter to the PM on December 30, 2015, which ET has seen.

Patel said in the letter that people of Gujarat had no ‘respect’ for the Congress but if that had not been the case, BJP would find it difficult to win polls. Analysing the local body poll loss, Patel said the Patidar community had affection for Anandiben, but the police action in GMDC ground, on August 25, 2015, had ‘angered’ the community and they sought revenge’.

Speaking to ET on Thursday, Patel said that the community was enraged with the police action on GMDC ground but no one assuaged their feelings.

In the 2015 letter he said “it is being spoken in every house in Gujarat that the home department in Gujarat is not under the chief minister or the home minister. Such notions that the actions against Patidars are being carried out following instructions from Delhi are now floating around.” Patel urged the PM to deal with Patidars himself, adding that their affection towards him was undiminished while none of the leaders in Gujarat, including chief minister Anandiben, was capable of handling the issue.