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Tired of waiting, says Ahmed Patel's son Faisal in cryptic tweet. Then 2 photos
Anil K Antony, Congress national coordinator social media and veteran leader AK Antony’s son, tweeted that Faisal Patel was a “forever part of our family, with a storied @INCIndia legacy, he’s surely going to remain so, and work on rebuilding Congress...”.
AHMEDABAD: Faisal Patel, son of top Congress strategist Ahmed Patel who died less than two years ago, on Tuesday suggested that he was running out of patience presumably with the Congress and was keeping his options open.
“Tired of waiting around. No encouragement from the top brass. Keeping my options open,” Patel, 41, said in a cryptic tweet on Tuesday. The tweet was widely read as a message to Congress, the party that his father had served for decades.
“I have nothing more or nothing less to say (than what I have tweeted),” Faisal Patel told HT over the phone, refusing to elaborate on his tweet. Or respond to speculation on social media, mostly prompted by a 2021 photograph with Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal, that the AAP could be one of the options.
Faisal declined to comment on the speculation about AAP but stressed that the photograph of his meeting with the Delhi chief minister was from last year.
“When I say I am keeping my options open, I might as well consider leaving politics altogether and focus only on my business,” he said.
Hours later, Faisal tweeted a photograph with the family of veteran Congress leader AK Antony. The senior Congress leader’s son Anil K Antony, who is also the Congress’s national coordinator of social media and digital communications, tweeted that Faisal was a “forever part of our family” and will remain so, and will work for rebuilding the Congress.
On his Linkedin profile, Faisal Patel describes himself as a “social and business entrepreneur” who is passionate about bringing qualitative changes in thehealthcare, education and technological sectors. He founded Zion Distribution, a generic drug distributorship, in 2004, and more recently, co-founded Aria Analytics, a big data analytics firm.
To be sure, Faisal Patel did announce on Twitter on 30 January 2021 that he won’t join “active politics” and will continue to “work on existing social initiatives”. But he appears to have revisited this decision.
On March 27, Faisal Patel announced on Twitter that he will tour the 7 assembly seats of Bharuch and Narmada districts from 1 April. “My team will assess the current reality of the political situation and will make major changes if needed to accomplish our main goal- win all 7 seats god willing,” he said in the post. Three days later, he posted a second message, to announce that his tour was being deferred “as the holy month of Ramadan is about to begin in a few days”.
Gujarat Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said the Congress and its leaders were with Ahmed Patel’s son.
“Ahmedbhai was our guiding light. His demise has been a huge loss for the party. His son Faisal has been carrying out the good work started by the father, be it women empowerment or upliftment of the poor. I am sure there must be some personal reason behind his decision. Congress party and its leaders are always with Faisal and his family members,” Doshi said.
His father Ahmed Patel won his first parliamentary election as a 26-year-old from Gujarat’s Bharuch in the 1977 general elections, the first after the Emergency was lifted.
In 2017, Ahmed Patel, who was a Rajya Sabha member from Bharuch since 1993, faced one of his toughest political battles during the Rajya Sabha elections but eventually scraped through with help from Chhotu Vasava, who later went on to form the Bharatiya Tribal Party and is in discussions to ally with Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP.
