After Nitin, another Guj minister is upset

After Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel created a stir over allocation of portfolios not befitting his status, Gujarat Koli community veteran Purushottam Solanki on Tuesday threw a tantrum asking Chief Minister Vijay Rupani to give him “better”, “more than one” and a Cabinet status after winning five terms in a row.

Solanki, once accused by the Srikrishna Commission in connection with the 1993 Mumbai communal riots, also held out a veiled threat that his Koli community would “demonstrate this during the 2019 Lok Sabha election whom they support and who they won’t”.

The minister, who represents the Koli community that has a whopping 26 per cent population concentrated in the key Saurashtra region, called on Rupani and told him that it was a sentiment of his community to have a better say for him in the government, reports IANS.

“I came to meet the Chief Minister but got stuck in bad traffic and his chamber was choc-a-bloc with people and we could not have a detailed chat. He said a decision about this could be taken after three days,” Solanki told reporters at the Sachivalaya in Gandhinagar.

“I am not asking for anything, it is my community that is asserting and feels that I, since I am not the only one in the government, be given a respectable due.

“The Chief Minister himself keeps 12 portfolios, some first-time ministers have three to four good portfolios, but I have only one and that too a negligible one,” the Minister of State for Fisheries said.