Rajkot: Over one and half lakh people from the Kshatriya community gathered at Rajkot this evening from across Gujarat and beyond, demanding the withdrawal of the candidature of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Parshottam Rupala who is also the Union Agriculture Minister. Rupala is fielded by the BJP as its candidate for the Rajkot Lok Sabha seat. In one small gathering, Rupala had mentioned inter-faith wedding relations between Maharajas and Mughals.

Kshatriya community has earlier held meetings of thousands of community members in Dhandhuka, Patan, and Himmatnagar. Today’s public meeting at Rajkot was however the biggest.  Today’s ‘Kshatriya Maha Semmelan’ was organized by the coordination committee of various Kshatriya organizations.

While the gathering was peaceful, one of the speeches by Kirti Rathore who contested the assembly election in Rajasthan called for the death of Rupala, while the other speech from a person from Madhya Pradesh called for the “treatment” of Rupala when he entered the village for campaigning. Makrana, one more leader from other State, called for chakka-jam (blockade) of highways if he is detained by Police after the public meeting.  Barring this, all orators called for peace and discipline before, during, and after the public meeting. “Representatives” from tribal, Mole Salam, and Scheduled Caste communities also spoke briefly in this public meeting. Many orators thanked Rupala for bringing unity to the Kshatriya community. They noted that never, the community gathered in such a big numbers.

The main demand in the sammelan was the withdrawal of Rupala’s ticket by BJP. While Kshatriya community outfits have been agitating against Rupala for the last twenty days or so, the ruling party has kept him intact as a candidate for the Rajkot seat. Rupala has apologized twice for his remarks and has met with saints and a section of Kshatriya leaders.  Rupala’s campaign and the Kshatriya community’s protests are going in parallel. The agitation by Kshatriya has so far not resulted in violence.

A Spokesperson of the coordination committee in his speech said that Part 2 of this agitation will start on 19th April as it is the last day of withdrawal of nomination for candidates. It’s worth noting that Gujarat is going to witness polling for the Lok Sabha election on the 7th of May. The last day of withdrawal of candidature is 19th April. The city BJP announced earlier that Rupala would file a nomination on 16th April after a public meeting at Bahumali Bhavan.  DeshGujarat