The election season is coming in Gujarat. A season that will involve mass defections, politicians parroting different tones, last moment change of hearts, and a grand show of opportunism. In a strange but predictable turn, the one-day wonder boy Hardik Patel is undergoing all of this simultaneously. He has thrown the bait, now the ball is in BJP’s court. Will they play along or past deeds of Hardik has done enough damage to his political career, which was never bright to start with.
The New Ram Bhakt
It seems the ‘cat’ has made up its mind to visit the holy shrine after eating nine hundred mices. Working President of Gujarat Congress Hardik Patel knows how to come back into the news and garner attention. Congress is not a fringe party in Gujarat yet the self-proclaimed tall Patel leader has no takers in the party. So, after being outcasted by his party, he wants to change political robes.
He is singing all those political tones which hint at his desire of joining the Saffron party. BJP, the party, which he once vowed to remove as Gujarat Government. He has poured heaps of praises at BJP and called it a strong party in the state. He even backed the major landmark decisions of the past like Article 370 and Ram Mandir. He called himself a ‘Ram Bhakt’ and a proud Hindu. Hindustan Times, quoted Hardik as saying, “We believed in Lord Ram. On my father’s birth anniversary, I will distribute 4,000 copies of the Bhagavad Gita. We are Hindus, and proud to be Hindus”.
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He had previously taken potshots at his state party leaders. He accused them of harassing and forcing him to leave the party. He recited his displeasure on the fact that he had enlightened Rahul Gandhi about these facts but none in the party had been taken to task. His dejection from the Congress party can be understood from his earlier statement in which he compared himself with a new bridegroom who has undergone Vasectomy.
One Day Wonders don’t last in real polity
Hardik Patel came into the limelight as the leader of 2015. Patidar agitation. He became a prominent young Patel leader. But he never tried to rise above caste politics and with him doing no real actions on ground, all misconceptions and demands of Patel community have been sorted out with BJP, he has lost this credential as well. Both the groups which led the Patidar Andolan, Patidar AnamatAndolan Samiti (PAAS), and Sardar Patel Group (SPG) had disowned him.
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The trio of Jignesh, Hardik, and Alpesh were the poster boys in the last Gujarat assembly election. But, they couldn’t stop the BJP juggernaut in Gujarat when the Patel Andolan was at its peak. Now the trio has been broken, Alpesh Thakur had already joined BJP in 2019. Jignesh has been arrested for hurting religious sentiments of certain communities. Hardik Patel now can’t ride on the caste politics and has nothing to offer for the BJP. BJP with their welfare schemes has raised politics beyond caste, regions etc. and it will be a surprise if BJP ropes him within the party. It will be like going one step forward, two steps backward.
Gujarat has been a BJP bastion for nearly three decades and the principal opposition in the state is in a self-destruction mode. It will be fool-hardy of the BJP to allow Hardik Patel to join the party. This seasonal ‘Ram Bhakti’ has been exposed in the past as well and the ‘new’ Ram Bhakt will not be able to fool anyone anymore and his career may end before starting.