Soon after ballot strategist Prashant Kishor declined a suggestion to hitch the Congress get together as a part of its newly-constituted Empowered Action Group (EAG) for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, ending days of hypothesis round him becoming a member of the get together, the main target quickly turned to an unlikely man miles away from Delhi the place all of the motion was unfolding.
Gujarat, the place elections are due in December this yr, has been witnessing intense jostling amongst political events for a Patidar chief who has thrown his hat within the ring and expressed his need to enter lively politics. Naresh Patel, the person each get together desires to get into its fold, was recognized to have the backing of Prashant Kishor for an entry into the Congress. This was additionally seen as the first issue behind the rising discomfort of Hardik Patel, the GPCC working president, with the state management as polls close to.
Who is Naresh Patel?
Fast rising because the tallest chief of Leuva Patidars, a sub-group of the Patel neighborhood that instructions huge sway in 48 of the 182 meeting seats in Gujarat, Naresh Patel, 56, is an industrialist and the chairman of the influential Shree Khodaldham Trust (SKT). The Trust manages a grand temple of Goddess Khodiyar, the patron deity of the Leuva Patidar neighborhood, at Kagvad close to Rajkot in Gujarat.
Patel, additionally recognized for his philanthropic actions, additionally serves as managing director of Patel Brassworks (PBW), a Rajkot-based agency his father Ravjibhai Undhad based in 1948. The firm at the moment manufactures engine elements starting from vehicles to plane. The youngest amongst six siblings, Patel attended Saint Mary’s college and Rajkumar College and accomplished his B.Com from JJ Kundaliya Commerce College.
Having arrange the SKT in 2010, Patel additionally arrange the Sardar Patel Cultural Foundation in 2013. which gives free teaching to authorities job aspirants. He additionally arrange the Khodaldham Samadhan Panch, an alternate dispute decision discussion board, and has enrolled 1000’s of volunteers by the SKT’s college students and girls wings. The initiatives that Patel has been concerned with through the years give him immense affect over the Patidar youth and the belief of its aged.
What subsequent for Naresh Patel?
With talks between the Congress and Prashant Kishor, who rallied behind him to get him into the Congress fold, having failed but once more, Patel maintains that the event can have no bearing on his future plan of action. But there was some influence anticipated so far as Naresh Patel’s entry into lively politics is worried.
The growth in Delhi coincides with the annual assembly of the SKT board of trustees. As per the Trust, a dialogue was anticipated on an ongoing inner discipline survey to establish individuals’s views on whether or not Naresh Patel ought to be part of politics. On his half, Patel has dismissed media reviews that the survey threw up destructive outcomes on whether or not he ought to be part of lively politics. The survey, he stated, doesn’t painting the entire image.
“Khodaldham is all over Gujarat, and so, if somebody is saying 70% (of respondents) are saying ‘No’, then he doesn’t know about the youngsters, he doesn’t know about the women. He is talking about the elders. As you know, the elders worry about me. That is why they want to protect me, and therefore they say that it will be good if I don’t go (into active politics). They don’t say I must not go, but they do say it will be good if I don’t go,” he instructed The Indian Express.
Source: www.financialexpress.com”