‘Modi has to do just one rally to change tide’
equally furious. Her cousin was one of the two rioting youth killed by police bullets in Mehsana in 2015. “The government will have to give quota to Patidars one day. If the Constitution can be written, it can also be changed,” she says.
Sitting next to her in a middleclass living room in Modhera Chowk, 26-year-old Ratnikant Patel, too, rues his plight: “What kind of India is this?” Two years ago, fed up of rejection by government departments — first he applied for a job as a school teacher, then a roadways clerk — he stopped running his neighborhood’s Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh shakha.
By various local accounts, the Patidar movement stands diluted. “Hardik Patel went to jail for nine months. In that time, many youth left under pressure from families,” says SK Langa, head of the zilla parishad.
“Also, the BJP has been actively regaining ground in Mehsana with grassroots engagement,” adds Langa.
In the recent gram panchayat elections in the district, the party won 41 of the 156 seats unopposed.
Back in action after 15-month absence, Hardik Patel has been busy cultivating a larger voter base.
“It’s not about the Patidars anymore. It’s about youth and farmers,” he says, surrounded by a coterie in a villa on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.
“The BJP is talking about 150 seats. It won’t even get 50,” Langa says.
Not everyone’s buying that optimism. As an observer of the tug-ofwar in Mehsana put it, “Modi has to do just one rally in Mehsana, the whole picture will change.”
We used to fund our own schools, colleges, temples, hospitals and pharmacies. We didn’t need the government, but we helped the BJP come to power. Now when we need help, the party won’t even listen to us.