The prime minister Narendra Modi during his Gujarat visit next week will use the advantage to woo the Patel community before the Lok Sabha polls. The community was at discord with ruling party BJP on the issue of reservation stir, but they are hosting the prime minister in two different events that will be attended by over 5 lakh people across the state.
The Vishwa Umiya Foundation, an Rs 1000 crore project including a temple of Umiya Mata (goddess of Kadva Patels), hospital, education and professional training institute, sports and recreation centre and other will be built in next ten years in the outskirts of Ahmedabad city. The PM will lay the foundation stone for the project on Monday.
The community is mainly localised in Mehsana, Gandhinagar, Sabarkantha, Aravalli, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Morbi, Kutch, Junagadh and Amreli districts. The organisation claimed that community people from all across the state would turn up to attend the ceremony. The Kadva Patel community dominates on Rajkot, Mehsana, Gandhinagar, Sabarkantha and Kutch Lok Sabha seats and the event may play an important role to convince the community to have political tending towards BJP.
The coordinator of Vishwa Umiya Foundation, RP Patel said, "The government has recently announced 10% quota for upper castes too and the long pending demand of Patel community is almost solved with that. Following the same, people's approach can be changed. Though the programme is not aimed at providing political advantage to any party, the community would elect who they think in their interest is best."
The community was highly influenced by quota leader Hardik Patel once, but he did not remain relevant for the community after he shifted his aim towards personal progress, RP Patel said. It is noteworthy that Hardik Patel is not specially invited for the event.
"We have tried to send invitations to all who are from our community. If no special invitation could be reached, there is an open invitation to all who have faith in our deity Umiyamata and is proud of being Kadva Patel. This is not a political platform so people from any political leaning are welcomed here," RP Patel said.
The Vishwa Umiya Foundation, an `1000 cr project including a temple of Umiya Mata, hospital, education and professional training institute, sports and recreation centre and other will be built in next 10 years in the outskirts of Ahmedabad city.