Groups of Patidar women protest Rupala led meets in Unjha, Patan

Ahmedabad

BJP vice-president Purshottam Rupala and other party members today faced protest by groups of Patel community women beating steel dishes with spoons during two separate public events in Mehsana and Patan districts.

Patel community are demanding reservation under Other Backward Class(OBC) category.

Rupala, along with Mehsana Lok Sabha MP Jayshree Patel and Unjha MLA Narayan Patel, was present at the venue to give cheques to farmers and address BJP workers at an event in Unjha hosted by the town’s Agriculture Produce Market Committee, Unjha Assembly BJP MLA Narayan Patel said.

Rupala and others left the venue to avoid any untoward incident, he added.

According to Patel, women of the Patel community protested against Rupala who himself from Patel community seeking reservation for Patels under the OBC quota.

When he was asked if they were also protesting against alleged police role during Patidar violence, Patel said, “It is implied”.

After this event, Rupala reached the neighbouring Patan district to attend another BJP programme at Chansama road area, where he again faced protest by a group of women beating steel dishes with spoons. In this function however, police removed protesting women from the scene, and the meeting could continue.

The protest was louder mainly because number of Patidar community members are booked by police in various attacks, attempt to murder, arson, rioting, damage to government properties and other offenses. Couple of days back Unjha MLA Narayan Patel briefly participated in dharna protesting against attempt to murder section in FIR against local Patidars by police.

Mehsana district was one of the worst-affected districts during the 25-26 August Patidar violence, and curfew was clamped in the district for around four days. Unjha is part of this district.

Major cases filed in Unjha in connection with 25-26 violence include burning of Unjha police station building by pouring liquid causing damage worth Rs 70 lakh. In this case, local Patidar community members including Bhavlesh Patel, Ashwin Patel, Rajendra Patel, Vijay alias Jatin Patel, Sanjiv alias Kaliyo Patel and 2500 strong Patidar mob are shown as accused. In another case ST bus was burnt at Maktupur in Unjha causing Rs 40 lakh damage. 250-300 strong Patidar mob is booked in this case. In third major case in Unjha, 5,000 stong mob of Patidar including Mikka alias Ravan Patel is mentioned as accused. In this case, Aithor and highway chowky of police were attacked and damaged causing damages worth Rs 160 lakh. In one more case Sales Tax office was torched and Taluka panchayat office was ransacked with record destroyed.

Sardar Patel Group (SPG), leading the Patel agitation, had earlier declared that they would not allow BJP leaders in areas dominated by them. Incidentally, the Patel community protest comes just ahead of local body polls in Gujarat. The local body polls are scheduled to be held in October but since the Supreme Court has stayed them due to delimitation, they will be held once the top court gives its nod.