AHMEDABAD: President of Sardar Patel Group Lalji Patel today announced that the next round of agitation for reservation for the Patel community would start from April 17, as the Gujarat government was not responding positively.
Lalji had worked closely with the jailed leader Hardik Patel who led the first round of agitation last August.
Addressing reporters here, Lalji said the Government had so far not met their demands of reservation as well as release of Hardik and other jailed conveners of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) who are facing sedition cases.
"We gave a memorandum of demands to the Chief Minister Anandiben Patel on March 11 and gave one month's ultimatum.
Till today we have not received any positive feedback. So SPG has decided to start a civil disobedience movement against the government from the next month," he said.
"This movement will start from Mehsana town on April 17, a week after our one-month ultimatum ends. This time a large number of Patels will come out on roads and court arrest on a mass scale. Later the Jail Bharo agitation will be held in other parts of the state," said Patel.
"We will also file a PIL demanding a stay to government recruitment till the decision on reservation is not taken. We will also demand a free and fair inquiry into the police atrocities committed on Patels during our agitation in August," said an SPG member and the lawyer Rohit Patel.
Though SPG and PAAS have differences at present, Lalji claimed that PAAS had agreed to support them.
Lalji also clarified that Patels should be given reservation under EBC (Economically Backward Class) quota.
"We have asked for reservation under OBC quota earlier, but now we want it under EBC quota to avoid confrontation with OBC communities," he said.