Dismissed Congress leader Nikhil Sawani joins AAP

Former vice-president of Gujarat Pradesh Youth Congress, Nikhil Sawani, who was dismissed from the party on July 8, joined Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday. Sawani, known to be a close aide of Congress leader Hardik Patel, became a poster boy of Patidar reservation movement in Gujarat.

Addressing the mediapersons, Sawani said, “My purpose of joining the AAP is to work for youths, women and men in the state and bring them justice. The Congress has a major problem of groupism of which I have become a victim.”
Nikhil Sawani said, “It was Ashwin Sakdasariya from Surat and me who had began Patidar movement in 2015. To create awareness among the Patidar people, we took the help of the social media and got an immense response.

Later leaders from Patidar community like Hardik Patel, Alpesh Katheirya, Dharmik Malaviya, Vishal Vasoya and others joined the movement and took it forward.”

He added, “I joined the BJP a few months before the assembly election in 2017 demanding that all the cases against Patidar youths be withdrawn. I remained with BJP for 14 days and then left the party after I realised that the demands would not be met. I had joined the Congress hoping that I would be able to work for the community, mostly youths. But after four years I have realised that it will never happen.”

AAP leader Isudan Gadhvi said, “Like Arvind Kejriwal’s government in Delhi announced Rs 50,000 to the family members of those who died due to Covid-19, we will do the same, in fact raise the amount, if we form a government here. We are also planning to erect a memorial in Gandhinagar in memory of those who died of coronavirus in Gujarat.”

When asked about the allegations made by minister of state for health Kumar Kanani about corruption done in collecting funds for isolation centres in Surat, Gadhvi said, “If he believes that corruption is done, who is stopping them to carry out probe. These are baseless allegations. During Jan Samvedna yatra, we visited Kanani’s native village and found that no isolation centre was set up and people were facing problems in getting treatment.”