JOIN USA day after an audio clip of Patidaar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) leader Narendra Patel and BJP leader Varun Patel about the financial transactions regarding Patel's jumping ship to the BJP, a series of audio clips about the connivance between the PAAS and Congress began doing the rounds.
These clips are said to have the voice of Narendra Patel talking to an unknown person and revealing how over the time, Congress has been funding activities of the Patel quota stir in the state.
The voice of Narendra Patel names Ahmed Patel, political advisor to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, state Congress chief Bharatsinh Solanki and former MP from Mehsana Jivabhai Patel, saying they had extended financial help for PAAS activities.
"Once I and Atul were sitting with Bharatsinh, and Jivabhai walked in. When we told Bharatsinh that it was difficult financially for us to hold any more programmes for want of money, Bharatsinh told Jivabhai, who had just walked into the room by chance, to help us. To this, Jivabhai said that he has been regularly helping us and had even given us Rs 10 lakh to organise a function for women," the Narendra Patel voice said.
These audio clips come as a shot in the arm for BJP, which attacked both the Congress and PAAS on the issue.
The BJP has for long been claiming that it is the Congress that is controlling the Patel quota stir from behind the scenes. "Where is the Congress Yuvraj today? Yesterday when allegedly my audio clip went viral he was on Twitter. Where is he today? Where are the Congressmen today?" asked Varun Patel.
Narendra Patel claimed that the voice in the audio clips was not his. "The function for women was held 14 months ago. These fake clips came out only after I exposed BJP and Varun on Thursday," he said.
Patel has filed a court complaint against Varun, state BJP chief Jitu Vaghani and others saying they offered him a bribe of Rs 1 crore asking him to move to the BJPÂ
PAAS leader Hardik Patel said such so-called exposes and audio-clip leaks happen and will continue to happen as elections are near.