Patidar stir for job reservation: Gujarat BJP wary of local elections now

GANDHINAGAR: The Patidar stir for job reservations has made strategising for the forthcoming local body polls difficult for the BJP. The party held a meeting to take stock of the situation at its headquarters, Kamalam, in the outskirts of Gandhinagar last Friday, attended by state unit chief RC Faldu, chief minister Anandiben Patel and other senior leaders.

Speaking to ET on the sidelines of the meeting, a senior leader accepted that the Patidar stir would hurt the party in the local body polls. “The loss under all circumstances is ours and in its entirety,” said the leader.

“Others (read Congress) have nothing to lose anyway. The community has been the biggest supporter of the party all along. It will take time to heal and let’s see how things go till 2017,” he added. Gujarat assembly polls are in 2017.

The people in the city have expressed similar sentiments. “After all that has happened, Patels will think twice before voting for BJP, at least in the next election, which is only months away,” said Bhavesh Patel a tea vendor in his late 50s in the arterial Ashram Road in Ahmedabad.

“There are distinct three possibilities,” maintained a BJP insider.

“Either, the Patels vote for Congress en mass, which is extremely unlikely as the community nourishes a deep sense of dislike for the party, or they form a political outfit of their own, or abstain from voting.

In ant case, it will hurt the BJP as the community forms one of the most, if not the most, important vote bank of BJP in Gujarat.”