Gandhinagar: Gujarat minister Nitin Patel today alleged that senior Congress leader Gurudas Kamat had equated Patel community with “flies”, a charge denied by the Maharashtra leader. Kamat is in charge of the party affairs in the BJP-ruled state.

A news report in local Gujarati news paper had reported today morning that Kamat asked Congress leaders to field maximum Patel community candidates. He then passed remark that to attract flies, it is necessary to place jaggery. Based on this Nitin Patel who is senior minister and Gujarat Government spokesperson slammed Kamat on his facebook and twitter for comparing Patels with flies.

“On Monday, Kamat compared Patels with flies while addressing party workers. He told them that just like jaggery is used in attracting flies, Congress can lure Patels using same tactic. I condemn such statement by Kamat, as he compared Patels with flies,” Patel tweeted.

“Such shocking statement by a Congress leaders shows their low level mentality. Patel community needs to understand that Congress is only trying to use Patels to acquire power. I request Patel community to come forward in condemning this statement by Kamat,” he added in the tweet.

Kamat, who was here to attend a two-day executive committee meet, stoutly refuted Nitin Patel’s claims.

“BJP has already lost the support of Patels. Now, they are putting words in our mouth. Yesterday, I only listened to party workers, not addressed them once. I only spoke today in the meet. I can not even think of making such statement,” Kamat told reporters.

“If Nitin Patel thinks that BJP will get the support of Patels by tweeting such baseless statement, which I never made, then I must say that BJP is only day dreaming” he added.

Reacting to the purported comment, PAAS leader Chirag Patel asked Kamat to apologies within 48 hours.

“Such statement proves that Congress is seeing Patels as vote-bank only. Instead of supporting us, Congress leader is comparing Patels with flies. Kamat should be ashamed of it. If he does not apologies within 48 hours, we will stage protests across the state and burn his effigy” said Chirag, who is a close aide of quota stir leader Hardik Patel.

With inputs from agency