Ahmedabad: With Gujarat elections round the corner, Patels, who constitute about 12-14% of Gujarat voters, were reached out by PM Narendra Modi as well as Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday.
PM Modi kept a personal touch and spoke in Gujarati, he also attended the silver jubilee celebrations of Akshardham Temple of Swaminarayan sect, reports The Financial Express.
He said: “This Swaminaryan sect has a very large following among the Patel community members. Patel community has traditionally been with the BJP, but a section of the community has turned against the party due to recent agitation for reservation.”
On the other hand, Rahul Gandhi drew an analogy with the Pandava-Kaurava tussle in the epic Mahabharata and said that the fight between his party and the BJP in Gujarat was one between “truth and lies”, where truth is by Congress side.
“The fight is between truth and lies. Kauravas had a huge army, weapons, and Pandavas only had truth and nothing else. I would like to tell you that we only have truth and nothing else,” PTI quoted him as saying in Valsad district.
When both the parties are making an effort to woo the voters in Gujarat over an alleged neglect of Sardar Patel, Rahul also invoked the Sardar and Mahatma Gandhi.