The centre of gravity of the Gujarat assembly election seems to have metaphorically moved to the 16 seats in Surat, and within that to the 12 urban constituencies. About 40 per cent of Surat’s population is from Saurashtra—mainly workers who have been migrating here, since the late eighties, due to acute water shortage back home. AAP’s Patidar thrust In 2015, …
In a major boost to the Aam Aadmi Party, two prominent leaders of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti that spearheaded the Patidar quota agitation in the State in 2015 — Alpesh Kathiriya and Dharmik Malaviya — joined the party ahead of the Assembly polls in the presence of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann in …
The Varachha Road assembly seat, a Patidar-dominated area in Gujarat, was the epicentre of violence during the community’s agitation in 2015. With many in Gujarat politics ready to write off PAAS after the likes of Hardik Patel who were intrinsic to the party branching out to other political parties, as the agitation for reservation ended with the government accepting the …
