Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s upcoming visit to USA in New Jersey will be very crucial. It sends him a “strong message” and mounts pressue due to the issue of Patidars OBC quota. The Patidar or Patel community members living in the US announced to “boycott” PM’s US visit. More than 1,000 Patels on Tuesday held a meeting in Edison town of New Jersey to extend their support to protests being organised by their brethren, Sardar Patel Group (SPG) leader Lalji Patel said. SPG disassociated itself from Hardik Patel-led Patidar Ananmat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) after their mega rally on August 25 in Ahmedabad and is running a parallel movement to press for the OBC quota demand.”Patels living in US have come forward and extended their support to our cause.
Lalji stated that Patels in US always participated with great enthusiasm during such visits of PM Modi. “But now, the Patel community in US wants to give a strong message to PM who has not taken any decision about reservation to Patels. Thus, we have decided to stay away from his programme in US,” he said. He added that Patels will keep away from any programme of Gujarat government as part of their ongoing stir. The US-based Patels have also asked their community in Gujarat to stop paying taxes to government. “Not just US, Patels will also stay away from any state government programme in Gujarat. Our US-based members also appealed to us to stop paying taxes to mount pressure on government. We will convey this message to our community to implement it in coming days,” said Lalji. Indian PM is supposed to visit California by September end.
