Newsmaker | As an old rival returns, Gujarat ‘giant-killer’ Paresh Dhanani answers Congress call

In contrast to the recent history of squabbling among Congress workers in Gujarat for election tickets, a different Congress story is unfolding in Rajkot this time. Around a dozen local leaders drove to the residence of Paresh Dhanani in Amreli on April 9 to request him to take on Parshottam Rupala of the BJP in the Lok Saba polls, two decades after his famous victory over the Union Minister.

A reluctant Dhanani, known for his oratory skills, agreed that if Rupala weathered the ongoing Kshatriya protests against him and held his ground, he would enter the poll fray against his old rival. With Rupala filing his nomination papers on April 16 amid protests by Kshatriyas over his allegedly derogatory remarks about the community, Dhanani plunged into his campaign the same day and is set to file his papers on Friday.

“Of late, Patidars cutting across party lines are acting in a partisan manner, giving top priority only to the interests of their community. Dhanani is among a handful of mild-mannered Patidars who are not openly casteist, and is hence acceptable to non-Patidars,” said a senior Congress leader.

Dhanani had his first brush with politics in 1989 when he was still in school. “Sanjay Gajera, a local Congress worker, noted that my handwriting was good. So, before the 1989 Lok Sabha elections, he took me to the Congress office to write voters’ slips. I slipped into politics from then on,” said the 47-year-old, adding that former Congress MPs from Amreli, Navinchandra Ravani and Manu Kotadia, had a big influence on him.

While in college, Dhanani formed the Students’ Cultural Group of Amreli, a forum for students to organise various programmes and events. In 1997, he founded Parivartan Trust, an organisation he still runs.