As many as 6 BJP councillors including the chairman of the executive committee in Gujarat’s Padra Muncipal Corporation have resigned to join the Patel movement in the state.
These councillors are Jagdish Lalabhai Patel, Umesh Shah, Kamla Patel, Jitu Patel, Suresh Patel and Dakshesh Patel and they had recently joined the BJP amidst a lot of fanfare.
They submitted their resignations to the president of the Municipal Council announcing that they were resigning from their posts to joine the Patidar movement.
These six councillors, who had joined BJP in 2012 despite having won their seats on other parties’ tickets, joined a rally organised by the Patidar community in Padra’s vegetable market.
Kamlesh Patel, who was the chairman of the executive board of the municipal council said, “The Patidar community has taken to streets in the entire state of Gujarat to demand their right to reservation. We are supporting this agitation of the Patidars as we understand that it is a matter of the future generation and their education and employment.”
He said that the youth of the Patel community deserved admissions into the best colleges and also government employment, “which they are not currently able to secure” adding that he was in touch with ‘like-minded’ people in other civic bodies in other parts of Vadodara to support this agitation.