Last Thursday, an event in a hotel in central Gandhinagar saw a rare show of camaraderie among a slew of prominent leaders cutting across party lines. The occasion was a dinner party hosted by Hardik Patel to celebrate the birth of his son.
Apart from top leaders of the ruling BJP, several key faces of the Opposition parties like the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) attended the event, some of whom had been once close to Hardik, the BJP MLA from Viramgam.
Among the BJP leaders, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, state party president Jagdish Panchal, general secretary Prashant Korat, ministers Jitu Vaghani and Kanubhai Desai and the Assembly chief whip Balkrishna Shukla were present on the occasion. Assembly Speaker Shankar Chaudhary and Deputy Speaker Purnesh Modi were also in attendance.
From the Congress camp, state party chief Amit Chavda, working president and MLA Jignesh Mevani, and other party MLAs, including Amratji Thakor and Kanti Kharadi, made it to the event.
The AAP’s Jam Jodhpur MLA Hemant Ahir also attended the dinner party, following which Hardik posted its pictures on social media.
In 2019, Hardik had married his childhood friend Kinjal Patel at a simple ceremony in a village in Surendranagar. On January 9 this year, their son Prajwal was born.
Speaking about the event, Hardik, 32, said, “It was an occasion to celebrate the birth of my son, and I decided to invite all MLAs in the current 15th Gujarat Assembly as well as my friends I have worked with. I felt I should invite all of them. It was an occasion of joy and we together had fun.”
What especially drew attention was the presence of Congress leaders like Jignesh and Chavda, especially in the backdrop of Hardik’s past ties with the Congress and the bitter note on which he had quit the party months before the November 2022 Assembly elections swept by the BJP.
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In 2015, as the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) founder, Hardik, then aged 22, had launched the Patidar quota agitation against the BJP dispensation. In 2019, Rahul Gandhi inducted him into the Congress, and barely one year later appointed him as the working president of the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC).
Hardik and Jignesh were considered close to each other in the Congress till the former snapped his ties with the party in May 2022, mounting a scathing attack on Rahul. Subsequently, he joined the BJP.
On his presence at the Thursday event, Jignesh said, “It was an event to celebrate the birth of his (Hardik’s) son. Amitbhai (Chavda), Kantibhai Kharadi, Amratji Thakor et al (from the Congress) were also there. But it was an entirely personal function and there is nothing (political) to read into it.”
Jignesh admitted that this was for the first time that he and Hardik came together at such a social function after the latter broke up with the Congress.
Speaking about his interaction with Hardik at the celebrations, Jignesh said, “We were there for 10-15 minutes since we were scheduled to go somewhere else as well. But we traded jokes at each other’s expense and had fun time.”
AAP MLA Hemant Ahir, too, shares a common Congress connection with Hardik. During Hardik’s stint with the Congress, Ahir was with the party’s Jamnagar unit.
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Referring to his presence in the dinner event, Ahir told the Express: “I always have ideological fight…When Hardik was in Congress, I was president of Youth Congress’s Jamnagar unit. We were in close contact then. It (politics) has nothing to do with this event. A function to celebrate son’s birth is a social function.”
Ahir also said, “When he (Hardik) invited me with full courtesy, I must attend. There cannot be kattar rajniti (extreme politics). We live in Hindustan. We don’t live in Afghanistan, do we? Dialogue must remain alive.”