oppn parties The Game of Patel, Patel, Bhai-Bhai

News Snippets

  • SP drops two candidates owing allegiance to Azam Khan from Rampur and Moradabad
  • In Assam, a controversy erupted after a picture of UPPL leader Benjamin Basumatary, lying on a stack of Rs 500 notes circulated on social media. UPPL is an ally of the BJP
  • AAP's Jalandhar-West MP Sushil Kumar Rinku joins the BJP. He was the only AAP Lok Sabha MP
  • Supreme Court dismisses Centre's plea to review its 2023 verdict in the PMLA case
  • Close save for passengers as they remain unhurt after the wings of two planes graze at Kolkata airport. Pilots derostered and inquiry ordered by DGCA
  • Bengal BJP leader Dilip Ghosh gets notice from the EC as well as the BJP for making ugly remarks about Mamata Banerjee's parentage
  • Sadanand Vasanth Date, who faught terrorists in the 26/11 attack and was awarded the Preisent's Police medal, has been appointed the head of the NIA
  • Centre will borrow Rs 7.5L cr in the first six months of FY25, nearly 50% of the target for the full year
  • 25 stocks, including SBI, will see same day trade settlements from today in the world's fastest settlement mode in both BSE and NSE
  • Stocks recover smartly on Wednesday: Sensex rises 526 points to 72996 and Nifty 118 points to 22123
  • Tennis: Rohan Bopanna-Matthew Ebden reached the semifinals of the Miami Open
  • IPL: records tumble as SRH beat MI in a high-scoring match. SRH score 277/3 with 18 sixes and Mumbai score 246 with 20 sixes to fall short by 31 runs. Atotal of 38 sixes, highest in an IPL match were hit and both teams combined to score 523 runs, the highest aggregate in an IPL match
  • Amul will launch fresh milk in the US
  • IPL: RCB beat Punjab by 4 wickets as Kohli and Karthik shine with the bat
  • India strongly objected to German foreign office remarks over the arrest of delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, called it "biased assumptions"
Delhi Lt Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena says government cannot be run from jail, hints at President's Rule in the capital ////// In a dangerous incident, the wings of two planes grazed while taxiing on the runway at Kolkata airport, all passengers were safe but DGCA ordered an inquiry and the pilots were derostered
oppn parties
The Game of Patel, Patel, Bhai-Bhai

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2017-12-30 19:00:19

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
No sooner had the deputy CM of Gujarat displayed his displeasure at not being allotted any meaningful portfolios by not attending office, Hardik Patel has offered to get him an “important” position if he defects to Congress. The reason: the person in question has the surname Patel. Even after analyzing the results and voting patterns of the recent Gujarat election, some people with an inflated sense of self-importance (read Hardik Patel) still think that all Patels support him. That is very far from the truth and all Patels do not consider Hardik to be the sole champion of their cause. Analysis of voting pattern has proved that while a large percentage of the youth, especially in the Saurashtra region, from the Patel community, voted for Hardik-backed Congress, not many above 45-years were taken in by his hype. The reason is not far to seek. Hardik tied up with Rahul Gandhi, but Patels view both the Congress and the BJP to be equally unreceptive to their demands. They had rallied behind Hardik as they thought he would open a third front. The day he aligned with the Congress he lost many old-timers who went back to vote for the BJP.

Gujarat deputy CM Nitin Patel maybe miffed at being given cosmetic ministries that do not befit his status. But that is a matter between him and the party. The BJP, smarting under the drubbing it got in Saurashtra, has already reached out to the Patidars and is obviously not going to estrange Nitin Patel. Since the matter has now been escalated, Vijay Rupani and Amit Shah are going to offer him a face saving formula that will save the party the blushes and allow Patel to go back and tell the community that he has wrested what was due and he is now going to work for their benefit.

While Hardik Patel has tried to make the most of the situation by fishing in troubled BJP waters, one does not see anything coming out of it. Hardik has tried the age-old formula of trying to weaken the enemy to gain an upper hand. But Amit Shah is too seasoned a politican to let him get away with it. Nitin Patel will be placated since the BJP can no longer afford to be seen to be handing out a slight to an influential Patel leader. In any case, if Patel was made the deputy CM as a gesture towards the Patidar community, he should also be given responsibilities matching his status. New trends and challenges are emerging in Gujarat politics and if the BJP adheres to old responses it will lose more support.