Mansukh Mandaviya reaches out to Patidars during Rajkot yatra

RAJKOT: The Jan Ashirwad Yatra of senior BJP leader Mansukh Mandaviya in Rajkot on Thursday assumed political hues with the recently appointed union health minister reaching out to electorally important Patidars.
On his maiden visit to Gujarat after assuming the key portfolio, Mandaviya aggressively advocated the cause of Patidar representation in state and central governance, more than the yatra’s primary agenda of ‘exposing’ the opposition for stalling the monsoon session of Parliament.
In the meeting held during his Yatra on Thursday with Patidar leaders in an auditorium, Mandaviya said that ‘BJP and Patidars are one’. When asked to elaborate on his statement in a press conference later, he said, “The relationship between Patidar community and the BJP is like the umbilical cord and navel. The community remained with the party in the past and will be in the future too.”
Mandaviya also visited Khodaldham temple, the apex religious body of Leuva Patels, about 65 km from Rajkot in Kagvad, where he addressed a gathering of Patidar leaders. “It’s the first time after Independence that two Cabinet berths in Modi’s council of ministers were allotted to Patidars,” said the minister who asserted that the community has given many MLAs, ministers and chief ministers in the state.
Mandaviya also recalled former Patidar chief ministers of the BJP government, late Keshubhai Patel and Anandiben Patel. “For Anandiben, on one hand there was the community and on the other, there was Constitutional duty. She chose her duty over community,” said Mandaviya, without naming the 2015 Patidar agitation.
“MPs Mahendra Munjpara and Darshana Jardosh who hail from smaller communities also got representation in Modi’s cabinet. Eleven women and youth have also got ministerial berths,” said Mandaviya, while hailing Modi government’s inclusive growth and the equal importance all communities gets here. Naresh Patel, head of Khodaldham temple trust, said, “Patidar is a big community. There are community members in Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress too.” In a meeting of Leuva and Kadva Patidars held in Khodaldham in June had openly voiced his desire that the next chief minister should be from their community. Patel had then also added that the Patidars are under-represented in the government.
When asked to comment on Mandaviya’s statement about BJP and Patidar, Patel on Thursday termed it as the minister’s personal opinion. Expressing his satisfaction that two Patidars got Cabinet berths, Patel, however, skirted a query on their ‘Patidar chief minister’ demand.