Ahmedabad: Patidar leader Hardik Patel joined the Congress party on Tuesday, March 12, in the presence of Congress President Rahul Gandhi, during the party’s Working Committee meet in Ahmedabad.
Patel has made his intention clear to contest Lok Sabha elections from Gujarat’s Jamnagar, and according to reports, he will contest the general elections from the Jamnagar constituency. Currently, the Jamnagar Lok Sabha seat is represented by Poonamben Maadam of the BJP.
He justified his decision to enter active politics ahead of the Lok Sabha polls stating that he could now work for the 6 crore people of Gujarat in a better way.
Speaking in the Working Committee meet, the Patidar leader praised Rahul Gandhi for his leadership and said that the Congress President was ‘honest’.
Hardik Patel had risen to prominence when he led an agitation by the Patidar community in 2015, demanding that the community should get benefits of the quota for backward castes.
During the 2017 Gujarat Assembly polls, Patel had openly backed Congress and the party gave a stiff competition to the BJP. However, BJP had won the elections and currently holds all the state’s 26 parliamentary constituencies.
