Will campaign for Mamata Banerjee in 2019 polls, join TMC if needed: Hardik Patel

Kolkata: Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) chief Hardik Patel met West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata on Friday.

Patel said that Banerjee asked him to join TMC and he would do so if there was a need for it.

Equating Banerjee to India's former prime minister Indira Gandhi, Patel said that he has never seen such a feisty leader.

The PAAS leader also declared that he has promised to campaign for Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

"I will come here (West Bengal) in 2019 to campaign for her (Mamata Banerjee). In the country, there is no Opposition apart from the Congress and the Trinamool Congress. They have to come together and bring other parties together," Patel said.

Mamata Banerjee herself was also full of praises for the young Patel leader.
The chief minister said that she advised him to join politics as it was politicians who make policy decisions.

"Hardik is like my younger brother. He has a very good sense of politics and he is very sensitive too," Banerjee said.

Earlier, Patel had met Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and promised to work with him for ensuring Patel-equivalent communities in other states get reservations.

Kumar, however, later shifted his allegiance to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by breaking the 'golden trio' Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Janata Dal (United) (JDU) and Congress had formed to defeat BJP in 2015 Bihar Assembly polls.

The pro-reservation movement leader had said during his campaign in the recently-concluded assembly elections that he would decide on joining politics in two years, when he would be eligible to contest polls.