Gandhinagar: Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) leader Hardik Patel has kept the Congress on the edge after postponing his media interaction twice in the last 24 hours. The Patidars seem to be holding out for a larger share of the pie as the grand old party announces its tickets for the 2017 Gujarat Assembly Elections.
Patel was slated to hold a press conference in Ahmedabad on Tuesday morning to clear his stand over Congress’ quota proposal for the Patidars and announce if the community would extend support to the party.
Late on Monday night, the Gujarat Congress, in an attempt to placate the furious Patidar leaders, released a second list of 13 candidates. This included nine new names and four others, who were replacing candidates from the first list released on Sunday.
While the first nine names were new, the following four are — Bhikhabhai Joshi replacing Amit Thummar in Junagadh, Jaish Patel in place of Kiran Thakor in Bharuch, Ashok Jirawala from Kamrej taking the place of Nilesh Kumbani and Dhirubhai Gajera from Varachha Road in place of Prafulbhai C Togadiya.
Three out of these four are PAAS nominees, who Hardik and his supporters have backed vociferously.
The first list had triggered violent clashes between Congress and PAAS workers on Monday, with the latter taking a strong objection to the 77 names.
The delay by the Patidars in endorsing the Congress is on account of the fire-fighting by PAAS leadership, as they attempt to pacify leaders who may not be accommodated by the Congress and are being aggressively wooed by the BJP.
While Hardik Patel was supposed to cement his pact with the Congress on Monday, he cancelled his rally in Rajkot. Later, it was announced that talks between both parties were still going on. Reports suggest that PAAS was seeking at least nine nominees of its choice, while the Congress did not want to concede more than six.
Tuesday i.e. November 21 is the last day of filing nomination papers for the first phase of polling in Gujarat.
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