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Updated September 8th, 2018 at 21:50 IST

Hardik Patel's Hunger Strike reaches 15th Day, here's the politics around it

At 9:00 am in the morning of September 7 - the 14th day of his ‘hunger strike’ - clad in a white dhoti and kurta, lying on his back on a pedestal bed, Hardik Patel - when asked if he will end his strike today - looked up tensely and nodded, ‘dekhte hain..’

Reported by: Priyanka Sharma
| Image:self
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At 9:00 am in the morning of September 7 - the 14th day of his ‘hunger strike’ - clad in a white dhoti and kurta, lying on his back on a pedestal bed, Hardik Patel - when asked if he will end his strike today - looked up tensely and nodded, ‘dekhte hain..’.  I politely waited as a few followers (mostly women) came up to the pedestal and clicked selfies with the 24-year-old Patidar leader. When asked again by almost all of the media reporters present, all he did was smile bleakly.

While Patel himself kept his cards close to his chest, by noon, almost everyone who was present at his posh bungalow on the outskirts of Ahmedabad had heard the chatter that there is space being prepared for the young leader to get admitted into Sola Civil Hospital, a government hospital nearly 10 km away from his residence.

In fact, police officials had come in the morning to meet with him and to pan out how to most peacefully take him to the hospital. All rumours were confirmed when Naresh Patel, the Khodaldham Trust President came to the residence and spoke to Hardik for a few short minutes and addressed the media - a few feet away from where Hardik was lying and urged him to get hospitalised. Naresh Patel, had been playing a mediator role between the Patidar leader and the state government officials. While addressing the media he said, “I have pressurised him to get admitted. He has made his point and he has to stay in this for the long haul. But I will also pressurise the government to show some reaction to his fast and his demands. I will meet the apt leaders in Gandhinagar tomorrow and talk to them.” Just minutes after he wrapped up and was about to leave, an ambulance made its way through hundreds of supporters cheering for their leader and celebrating – thinking that there is finally some response from the government and Hardik is ending his fast. It only took half an hour to get the official confirmation that neither of the two things were happening.

From inside the ICU, where Patel was admitted, his aides kept sending out the message that his fast is continuing because no concrete answer is being given by the government. His aide, Nikhil Savani came out to deliver the message to a thinning crowd of supporters that, “Hardik’s fast is still on because he is not consuming any food from his mouth and he is only being given Dextrose Normal Saline (DNS) drip.”

While Patel and his supporters have taken to social media and are aggressively trying to send out the message that the ‘fight is indeed still on’ they seem to be fighting a losing ‘optics battle’. One of his advisors shared – moments after the ambulance took him from the residence, “This will ruin the other 13 days when we were diligently sitting and patiently waiting for some response. I know that Hardik is very sincere about his efforts in this fight, but the optics will now be twisted as per what BJP wants to say.” Even as the ambulance pulled up to the hospital, several of his supporters mumbled, “chalo, patiyu ave. (let’s go, its done)”.

The BJP however, remained unperturbed from the entire incident and stuck to their statement of pointing fingers at Congress party. “We are happy that Hardik is finally getting the medical help that he desperately needs. It was the Congress who was using him for their own political vendetta. The memorandum that they had submitted to the governor does not even mention Hardik and his demands for Patidar reservation,” Saurabh Patel said. The state energy minister, however, did add that, “the government is always open to discussion with all community leaders.”  

‘Congress is piggybacking on Hardik's fast’

Meanwhile, the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) declared their own ‘dharna’ that they claimed would have been for 24 hours (from Friday 11am to Saturday 11 am) and while they wavered when the news of Hardik being hospitalised broke out but continued on with it. Several BJP leaders however, expressed that the agendas that the congress had claimed to be sitting in on the dharna had been fluctuating since the time that they declared the dharna. “earlier they said they will meet the governor for showing support of Hardik and talk to him about the Patidar community reservation. Then they didn’t mention anything about it in the 8 page memorandum that they submitted. They now all of a sudden also said that the dharna was for Alpesh Kathiriya’s (Hardik’s aide who is in judicial custody) bail. They are themselves confused and are only trying to take advantage of the media glare that is right now on Hardik and piggybacking on it,” Saurabh Patel also said while addressing the media.

Hardik and his past with fasts

Even as the controversy of Hardik Patel’s fast is starting to die down, him and his aides are trying to keep it alive since there truly was no solution that has yet been tabled in front of the Patidar leader. However, Hardik had also organised another ‘fast until death (or until broken)’ back in 2016 when he was inside Lajpur Jail which was in reference to demanding dropping of sedition charges (that are still not dropped). 

The leaders who came to meet and greet in the past 14 days 

On August 26 itself Dinesh Trivedi, the former Union railway minister had come to meet Hardik Patel. Interestingly, he had come bearing an envelope with Mamata Banerjee’s rakhi and tilak inside it. 

Other controversial leaders have been Shatrughan Sinha and Yashwant Sinha who spoke out against the central government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well.   

…and those who didn't show up

Hardik Patel's team had been talking about how there will be some big names and popular leaders like Mamata Banerjee and Uddhav Thackeray who would come down to meet with the Patidar leader. On Wednesday, there were even talks about Tejashwi Yadav coming to meet with the leader. However, none of them were able to show up. 

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Published September 8th, 2018 at 20:27 IST

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