A day after a purported sex video of Patidar quota agitation leader Hardik Patel went viral on social media and local news channels, another clip emerged on Tuesday in which a man resembling him is seen with a woman and two men on a bed in a room.
Mr. Patel has not reacted on the second video clip which went viral on social media platforms and local channels.
On Monday he had dubbed the sleaze video “morphed” and accused the ruling BJP of playing “dirty politics” in order to win the Assembly polls in the State.
“Dirty politics has started now. You can defame me but it will make no difference. The women of Gujarat have been insulted,” he had told journalists, terming the exercise as fabricated to tarnish his image.
“Just a few days back, I had told the media that such CDs will be circulated. This is just the beginning of dirty politics. I am sure that the BJP people would circulate some more CDs because the man who did it recently joined the party in Delhi. But I am not worried at all about such tactics,” Mr. Patel had added, saying he had expressed his apprehensions about attempts at his character assassination as the State moves closer to the polls.
On Tuesday, Congress’s spokesman Randeep Surjewala said the BJP’s ‘desperate attempts’ to malign Hardik and the Patel community would not succeed. “No matter how much the BJP tries to insult Hardik Patel, the Patel community or the women of Gujarat, they will not succeed,” Mr. Surjewala told reporters in New Delhi.
Congress sources claimed that the video episode would recoil on the BJP.
According to them, the whole CD episode is likely to become an “issue of Patel pride and how a nervous BJP is resorting to dirty tricks ahead of voting in Gujarat.” The Congress is seeking an alignment with the Hardik Patel-led Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) to win in Patidar-dominated seats in Saurashtra, North Gujarat and Surat.