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A court in Gujarat's Surendranagar district has issued an arrest warrant against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Hardik Patel for failing to appear before it in a 2017 case in which he is accused of violating a government order. Patel had made a political speech in violation of a government order at a village in the district ahead of the 2017 Gujarat Assembly elections. Additional chief judicial magistrate D D Shah at Dhrangadhra issued the arrest warrant against Patel for failure to appear the court. Through its order dated February 2, the court directed the Dhrangadhra taluka police station officer in Surendranagar district to arrest Patel and produce him before the court without fail. The order was received by the police station on February 11, an official confirmed. A first information report (FIR) was registered at Dhrangadhra taluka police station on January 12, 2018 after Patel and a co-accused Kaushik Patel were found to have violated the condition of the permission grante
The Patidar community, a section of which had voted against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2017 Assembly polls held in the backdrop of the quota agitation in Gujarat, returned to the ruling outfit in the just concluded polls as it won almost all the seats dominated by the influential social group in 2022. The BJP has done extremely well in the Patidar-dominated constituencies of the state, winning almost every seat that has significant Patel population. Polling for the 182-member Gujarat Assembly took place on December 1 and 5, and votes were counted on December 8. In the Saurashtra region, the Congress had won Patidar-dominated seats of Morbi, Tankara, Dhoraji and Amreli, among others in 2017. However, all these Assembly segments this time went in the BJP's kitty. In Patidar-dominated Surat, where the AAP was banking on the community to bag a few seats, the social group by and large backed the ruling party. The saffron outfit won Patidar seats of Varachha Road, Katargam
Former Congress leader Hardik Patel will join the BJP on June 2 in the presence of Gujarat party president C R Paatil, a state party spokesperson said on Tuesday. Patel's move comes ahead of the Gujarat Assembly elections due later this year. The BJP has been in power in the state for over two decades. Patel, 28, had in 2015 led a violent agitation seeking quota for his Patidar community and was a strong critic of the BJP in the past. The then BJP government in Gujarat had booked the firebrand leader in several cases, including on the charge of sedition. However, Patel, who had joined the Congress in 2019 and was later made the state unit's working president, quit the party earlier this month. Since then, there were speculations that he may join the ruling BJP. Of late, he has been praising the BJP's decision-making capacity and style of functioning, while severely criticising the Congress leadership. "It is confirmed that Hardik Patel will join the BJP on June 2 in the presence