Surat

A group of Patidar youths under the title of ‘Sardar Kranti Sena’ today afternoon burnt Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti(PAAS)leader Hardik Patel in effigy at Satadhar char rasta in Ahmedabad. Those who joined this protest said they were against the tactics of Hardik Patel. He in his speech said that if sacrifice is needed in the course of Patidar agitation, he would be the first person to give sacrifice. Hardik had said that he would be the first person to take bullet on his chest if needed during this agitation. But now 10 persons are dead including some from Patidar community, and Hardik is building his career out of it. During the two days of violence, he was hiding himself, pushing community members to trouble. Hardik misguided the community and took quota demand on wrong path.

In another development, Sarpanchs of 33 villages of Dandi kantha gam belt(dominated by tandel and koli community people) in south Gujarat marched to Navsari district collector office today afternoon and submitted a memorandum that the government must not allow Hardik Patel to hold reverse Dandi yatra from Dandi. In verbal communication they said this place is associated with Mahatma Gandhi and Gandhian ideology and locals would not like someone like Hardik Patel to hold any programme here.

Rajesh Patel, Sarpanch of Dandi questioned the idea of reverse Dandi march. He said the village is associated with Mahatma Gandhi and it doesn’t want any ‘kalank’ here. He said the last agitation programme of Hardik Patel resulted in violence. The people in this area don’t want his next agitation programme at this place. If government permits him to do his programme here, we will protest it in Gandhian way.

District Collector Ramya Mohan told media persons that she had received a memorandum from 33 Sarpanchs of this area.

It should be mentioned here that while Gandhiji believed in non-violence, Hardik Patel has been spotted in at least three photographs holding different guns. In his interview on Hindi news channel Hardik advocated for America like gun license system in India. 10 persons are killed and crores of Rupees of public and private properties are torched,damaged,destroyed in Hardik-led agitation so far. While unity was the ideal of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel, Hardik-led agitation has divided peace loving people of Gujarat into caste groups.

More details are awaited on both these developments.

– DeshGujarat