Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 6
Pulling down curtains on `will he won’t he’ speculations for several months now, 26-year-old face of the Patidar reservation stir, Hardik Patel is finally expected to join the Congress party next week and is likely to contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls from politically significant Saurashtra region.
Congress sources said Patel will join on March 12, the day the rescheduled Congress Working Committee in Ahmadabad happens. Patel is founder of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) in Gujarat and has been seeking reservation for Patidars.
Patel had previously maintained neither he nor any member of his Samiti will ever join politics or form a party and had argued for citizen activism. The BJP had accused him of being a B team of the Congress during the 2017 assembly polls.
Patel is expected to contest on Congress ticket from Jamnagar parliamentary segment in Saurashtra currently represented in Lok Sabha by BJP’s Poonam Maadam.
Patel has been asking backward status for Patidars. Earlier, a prominent OBC leader Alpesh Thakor had joined the Congress in the run up to the Assembly polls. The Congress had drawn a blank in Gujarat in the 2014 LS polls and is working hard to make an impact this time.
The party has zeroed in on constituencies it can win in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state and believes it can win at least half of the state’s 26 segments.
