Face of Gujarat's Patidar agitation Hardik Patel quits Congress

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, May 18

Gujarat Congress working president and Patidar leader Hardik Patel who led the agitation for reservations to the community in the state quit the party on Wednesday attacking the leadership for “working against national and social good and for practising a politics of disruption and negativity”.

Posting his resignation letter from the primary membership of the Congress on Twitter, Patel said the people have rejected the party in the state because it has not been able to present even a “basic roadmap to them.”

Patel said the Congress leaders have been more interested in looking at their mobiles rather than heed the problems of the state.

“Whenever the country needed Congress leadership the most, its leader was abroad,” said Patel. Patel also said that the country had long wanted solutions to issues of Ram Mandir, Article 370, CAA-NRC and GST but the Congress “only created hurdles in the way of these decisions focusing its entire politics on opposition of the ruling government at the centre.”

He said, the Congress, “with its attitude of hate towards Gujarat and Gujaratis and its attempts to dilute issues of the state” cannot expect the support of the people in the forthcoming elections. Patel had joined the Congress on the eve of 2019 Lok Sabha elections. He quit months before the state goes to polls.

The resignation comes as a huge blow to the Congress in Gujarat where the party is struggling with the appearance of the AAP. The development comes close on the heels of former Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar quitting the party.