Nagpur: Gujarat legislator and Congress’s OBC face
Alpesh Thakor as well as Patidar community leader Hardik Patel will be touring
Vidarbha later this month. Interestingly, Congress is staying behind the scene while organizing their visits which are aimed at raising the antigovernment pitch.
Thakor and Patel have emerged as the main rabble-rousers against the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They were closely involved with the Congress during the recent Gujarat assembly elections and reversed the political trend in that state where BJP barely managed to reach the winning post with narrow victory margins.
After Gujarat results, Congress-led Opposition parties have started talking of an anti-Modi wave building up and certain defeat of the BJP in Lok Sabha as well as Maharashtra assembly elections next year. To keep the momentum alive, the party aggressively participated in the anti-government protests after Bhima-Koregaon violence in January. This week they added to Devendra Fadnavis government’s discomfiture by extending support to the farmers’ long march in Mumbai.
On Saturday evening, Thakor will be delivering a speech at Suresh Bhat auditorium at a meeting organized by OBC Mahasangh leader Baban Taywade, who is also a Congress leader and is believed to be eyeing party nomination for the Lok Sabha seat in 2019. Taywade , however, denied that it was a party affair and said Thakor’s visit would help expose the ‘injustice’ being meted out to the OBCs by the government.
Hardik Patel will be addressing a large gathering of youth and farmers at Akola on March 23. The public rally at Swaraj Bhavan grounds there is being organized by Vidarbha Youth Forum (VYF). State Congress spokesman Sudhir Dhone will preside over the event.
VYF president Mangesh Bharsakle denied that it was a political rally and said Patel has been invited so that the event gets attention of the BJP governments in the state and Centre and reminds them of the electoral promises they have failed to honour.
