Can't a 23-yr-old have girlfriends, asks Hardik, but maintains sex videos' fake

Mumbai: Patidar leader Hardik Patel is not embarrassed of the three “sex videos” of him doing the rounds on social media, nor is he scared of losing mass support.

The videos – where a man purportedly to be Hardik is seen in a room with a woman – are “a desperate attempt by the BJP to cover up for their shortcomings,” the young leader told The Indian Express.

He added: “They could not break me, could not threaten me, or blackmail me to back off, so they had to create videos of a 23-year-old to character-assassinate him.”

Hardik said the video is morphed. He would have accepted them if there was a sting operation on him and his fiancé in a hotel room. “These are videos that have been created with a man who resembles me. I have already sent the video for forensic examination to some of our community members abroad and they have sent me an analysis that proves it was fake,” Hardik was quoted in the report.

Then he added: “However, even if we assume that I was immoral as some people say, and that it was indeed I in the video, I want to ask, can’t a 23-year-old youth have girlfriends? If a 23-year-old cannot have girlfriends, will a 50-year-old have girlfriends?”

The report mentions Hardik citing the example of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. “He once said he isn’t married but he is not a sanyasi either… An elected BJP member was caught molesting a girl and [sexually assaulting] her in a moving bus but they don’t talk about it… This is not a BJP vs Congress fight. It is BJP vs Hardik.”

Asked if he was planning any legal action, Hardik asked what would be the point. “I have no faith in a BJP-administered state,” he told the paper. “Also, in the world of politics, you have to be thick-skinned and also a neech (lowlife) to bear all this and remain silent… Let me tell you, I have become very neech.”