A day after meeting PAAS leaders, Gujarat Congress chief visits Delhi

Ahmedabad: Gujarat Congress president and former union minister Bharatsinh Solanki today went to Delhi, a day after his meeting with the 3-member committee of Patidar Ananmat Aandolan Samiti (PAAS).

A senior leader of the party close to Solanki said that there would be a separate high level meeting on the issues raised by PAAS committee.

‘In the meeting four to five senior leaders of party from Gujarat including its in-charge Ashok Gehlot and Solanki himself and 3 to 4 leaders from the its central wing led by Rahul Gandhi would participate. A strategy would be chalked out,’ he said.

He however said that in yesterdays meeting it was conveyed to the PAAS that the promise of reservation for patidars or patels by giving them OBC status was not possible but the party was ready for 20% EWS quota.

Meanwhile, PAAS convener Hardik Patel, who had to face the ire of many of the prominent members of his outfit for reportedly making the committee of Varun Patel, Dinesh Bambhaniya and Manoj Panara which held talks with Solanki, today said that he had sent them for the talks. He said that it was asked whether Congress if voted to power in Gujarat after this year’s assembly polls would provide reservation to the community, take back all the cases including that of sedition lodged during quota stir, give various benefits to the families of those killed during the stir. Rejecting his criticism over the meeting Hardik said that meeting Solanki was not like meeting the Pakistani PM.

In a rhetoric which has seemingly become his ‘trade mark’ of sorts, the PAAS leader also said that for the benefit of the community he was also ready to meet Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, who was ‘powerless’.

On the other hand Gujarat BJP president Jeetu Vaghani has said that the meeting of PAAS leaders with Solanki has made clear what the BJP was saying for the past one and a half years. ‘We used to say that these handful of people who claimed to be the representatives of the community has used it for their own selfish motives. For their own benefit they were holding many secret meetings with Congress party which in desperation to somehow come back to power in Gujarat was playing the politics of division of the society,’ Vaghani said.

DeshGujarat