Promise quota by Nov 3… or we'll oppose Rahul visit: Hardik to Cong

Ahmedabad: Patidar quota agitation leader Hardik Patel, who has put forward a set of demands before the Congress as a pre-condition for extending support to the party in the upcoming Gujarat Assembly polls, on Saturday asked it to make its stand clear by November 3 on how it would ensure reservation for the community.

In a tweet, he also threatened that the Patidar community would oppose Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi during his visit to Surat on November 3, like it did to BJP president Amit Shah during one of his public gatherings in the city. "Congress should make its stand clear by November 3 on how it will provide reservation to the Patidar community under the Constitution, otherwise the Amit Shah episode will be repeated in Surat," he tweeted.

Hardik (24) had recently met Congress' Gujarat affairs in-charge Ashok Gehlot and presented a list of demands to him, including reservation and a maximum number of poll tickets for the Patidar community members. The Congress has so far maintained that it will offer a 20-per cent reservation to the economically backward classes (EBC), without disturbing the 49-per cent reservation given to the scheduled castes (SC), scheduled tribes (ST) and other backward classes (OBC).