From 'enemy of the state' to 'patriot', Hardik Patel joins BJP

Posters welcoming Hardik Patel to BJP were put outside the party office in Gandhinagar

Having shot to fame for leading the agitation to get reservation for the Patidar community, which cost the then BJP government dearly and played a key role in the near-defeat of the saffron party in the 2017 Assembly polls, 28-year-old Hardik Patel on Thursday joined the very same party, one that he rose opposing as a young anti-establishment force. He went on a grand roadshow to the party office with a large number of supporters with dhol-nagada and DJ atmospherics.

Only C R Paatil, state party president, and Nitin Patel, ex-deputy CM, were present to welcome him at Kamalam, the BJP headquarters in Gandhinagar. Before officially adorning the saffron robe, Hardik performed puja at home and tweeted, "With the feelings of national, state, public and social interest, I am going to start a new chapter from today. I will work as a small soldier in the noble work of service to the nation under the leadership of the successful Prime Minister of India, Narendrabhai Modi." Apart from Hardik, Congress leader Shweta Brahmbhatt, 35, a post graduate from Westminster University, who unsuccessfully contested 2017 polls from Maninagar Assembly seat, also joined the BJP.

Also Read — I'll work as PM Modi's soldier, says Hardik Patel

Earlier on May 18, Patel had resigned from the Congress as its working president. He had joined them in 2019 during the Lok Sabha poll campaign and was elevated to the post of state working president.

Ending his three-year stint, Patel said that the Congress was "not a serious party" and its leaders "enjoy travelling abroad when the country is facing challenges back home". In his resignation letter to interim president Sonia Gandhi, he said, "A lack of seriousness about all issues is a major problem with the Congress party's senior leadership. Whenever I met the senior leadership, I always felt that the leaders were not really interested in hearing about problems concerning the people of Gujarat but most engrossed with what messages they had received on their mobile and other trivial things."

He went on to say, "Whenever our country faced challenges and when the Congress needed leadership, leaders were enjoying abroad. Senior leaders behave in a way like they hate Gujarat and Gujaratis." A couple of days later, his ex-colleague Jignesh Mevani criticised Patel for his "below-the-belt" remarks. The Congress also attacked Patel for saying that he was scared of the BJP due to criminal cases.

With Patel in their fold just months before the Assembly polls, the BJP has successfully neutralised its most vocal critic and has broken the troika of Patel, Mevani and Alpesh Thakor, which had almost defeated them in the 2017 polls. The trio represented the dominant caste groups of influential Patidars, Dalits and OBCs respectively. Thakor is already with the BJP while Mevani alone is hardly a threat.

When did he become a patriot?

On the road to Kamalam, dozens of hoardings announcing Patel's new home described him as a "youth" and a "patriot". They featured him with photos of top leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and others.

In the last seven years of his public life, Patel's life has seen a dramatic turn of events.

In 2015, he was booked in two separate sedition cases for reportedly asking quota agitation supporters to "kill policemen", "burn trains", "topple the government" and "burn the whole of Gujarat". He is facing charges for reportedly inciting people to "become Bhagat Singh and bomb the Assembly". He spent nine months in jail and was externed from Gujarat for six months as a condition of his bail. He still faces nearly two dozen criminal cases, most of them lodged during the violent quota agitation in which over a dozen Patidar youths were killed.

Meanwhile, the struggle to keep things together is on for the Opposition Congress due to internal conflicts. In 2017, the party won 77 seats and since then, it has lost 13 MLAs to the BJP. The Congress has lost most of the momentum gained from the last Assembly polls. And the party's efforts to induct Naresh Patel, the businessman and philanthropist from the influential Leuva Patel community, hang in the balance.