AHMEDABAD: After Gujarat Congress working president Hardik Patel’s outburst against his party, the Aam Aadmi Party has given him an open offer to join its fold. AAP’s Gujarat unit chief Gopal Italia told Patel not to “waste” his time in the grand old party.
“There is no place for dedicated people like him (in Congress). He should join a like-minded party like AAP,” Italia said. “Hardik Patel has come up as a leader on his own. He has expressed displeasure with the Congress leadership. We require leaders like him.”
He should not waste his time putting his case before the Congress leadership as it would not yield any results, Italia added. The AAP, in order to expand its footprints in Gujarat ahead of the Assembly elections in December, has been aggressively wooing leaders from both Congress and BJP and Italia’s offer to Hardik is part of the move.
Hardik, however, has denied he had any plans of leaving the Congress. After lashing out at the Congress leadership for “sidelining” him, he said there would be “small fights and blame games” in a big party, “but we have to work together to make Gujarat a better place”.While Hardik denied leaving Congress, AAP leader Nikhil Savani, one of his associates from the Patidar movement, hinted that he might “choose to grab the broom”.
The Congress has been facing trouble in Gujarat. Senior party leaders and workers are increasingly turning to BJP and AAP. On Thursday itself, two senior Congress leaders — Indranil Rajguru and Vashram Sagathia from the Saurashtra region — gave a big blow to the grand old party by decamping to the AAP while former MLA from Gadhda reserved seat, Praveen Maru, has joined the BJP.