Has the Patidar vote-bank slipped out of Hardik Patel’s hands?

A tour through Patidar dominated the landscape of Saurashtra, rural as well as urban, suggests that Hardik Patel seems to have lost the confidence of the community.

Interestingly, the narrative on the ground seems to be that Patidars, especially the older generation, always saw Hardik as a new face of the Patels within the BJP and not outside and that the support he enjoyed was for the limited goal of wringing out concessions from the government. When it comes to the larger politics of the state with Congress as the option to BJP, Hardik’s politics has gone haywire.

“People throng to his rallies and sabhas because we feel that he is a Patel kid who is fighting for our future. We thought we have found a new face or leader who will capture the BJP for us. But now that he is hobnobbing with the Congress, which is not done. Our political affiliation is clear,” said Nareshbhai Patel from Patidar dominated Virpur village on the border of Rajkot and Junagadh districts.

Dillidallying, Hardik has yet not been able to finalise his alliance with Congress. “This shows that he is rudderless. A problem is that he is not the age to contest elections and …read more