JOIN USA day after first phase of polling ended in Gujarat for local self governments, Chief Minister Anandiben Patel said that there was no question of providing reservations to the Patidar community under the Other Backward Classes category.
Patel was speaking at a poll rally in Saurashtra’s Amreli district, one of the key battlegrounds in wake of Patel quota stir seeking reservations in government jobs and educational institutions. Amreli is believed to be one of the strongest supporter of Patidaar movement among all the Saurashtra constituencies and would see polling on November 29, along with 56 municipalities, 230 tehsils and 31 district panchayats in the second phase.
This is for the first time since the five-month-long quota stir by the Patel community in the state that the chief minister has come out in open and categorical statement denying the possibility of any reservations to Patels. She said that her government would not let other communities suffer by earmarking quotas for the Patels. “Only 5 per cent of Patels are agitating and demanding reservations. There is no question of giving them quota,” Patel said in her campaign speech in Rajula town of Amreli district.
The overtures by the chief minister is also seen as her bid to woo OBCs, SCs and STs, who form 60 per cent of state population, away from the Congress to the BJP fold. The Patels, who have been strong supporters of the BJP in the state for over two decades, form 14 per cent of the total population.
Polling for the second phase assumes significance for the ruling BJP and the Congress, since several rural areas in the Patel-dominated North Gujarat and Saurashtra regions will elect their self-governments and could decide the fate of Patidar agitation going forward. Counting of votes polled during both the sessions will be held on December 2.
In an another development, over 3,500 Patels, alongwith two former corporators joined Congress in Himmatnagar town in North Gujarat. They were welcomed in to party by state party president Bharatsinh Solanki.
The Patel organisations leading the quota stir have pledged their support for the Congress.