The already heated up political atmosphere in Gujarat got curiouser amid rumours that Congress vice president, Rahul Gandhi quietly met Patidar agitation spearhead, Hardik Patel, who has been maintaining that he would not join the opposition and his fight was against the ruling BJP.
After local Gujarati TV channels splashed CCTV grabs of Patel entering a luxury hotel around 2 am and leaving after Rahul Gandhi had checked in there. Patel admitted at a public meeting and told reporters in the evening that he met AICC general secretary in-charge of Gujarat, Ashok Gehlot, but stressed that he did not see Gandhi.
“The Congress leaders had invited me to meet them but I was at a rally in Mahisagar district. I reached very late, may be 3 a.m., and met Ashok Gehlot. I presented the demands of the Patidars and the issues we are concerned about,” Patel said.
“It had got very late, so I put up at the hotel and left in the morning,” the Patel leader said.
He stressed, “It is absolutely wrong that I met Rahul Gandhi. I will meet when he comes next. And if I want to meet him, I don’t have to do so secretly. I am not meeting a terrorist, or meeting Nawaz Sharif at midnight like Narendra Modi did.”
