Patidar leader Nikhil Sawani on Monday announced that he was resigning from the Bharatiya Janata Party and returning to Hardik Patel’s Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti, which he had quit in 2016, Times Now reported. “I am resigning now because they are only offering lollipops and fulfilling nothing,” he told reporters.
His announcement came a day after another Patidar leader, Narendra Patel, alleged that the BJP had offered him Rs 1 crore to join the party. He claimed that Hardik Patel’s key aide Varun Patel, who joined the saffron party on Sunday with one other, had made the deal for him and given him a token of Rs 10 lakh. Narendra Patel said he had accepted the money only to expose the BJP before the media.
Sawani said he was not offered any money to join the BJP, but had “heard a lot about money being offered to party convenors and others”.
Narendra Patel is a convenor of Hardik Patel’s Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti.
The development and allegations come ahead of the Assembly elections in Gujarat, where the BJP and Congress have been vying for the support of the Patel community. On Saturday, the Congress had invited Hardik Patel to ally with them against the BJP, which has been in power in Gujarat for the past two decades.
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