New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will head to Gujarat on Saturday for a politically significant visit to the Somnath temple despite his hosts cancelling the invitation.
Kejriwal, along with his family, will fly from Delhi to Rajkot in the morning and then proceed to the famous Somnath temple in Saurashtra. AAP leader Kumar Vishwas will accompany them.
The Delhi CM decided to go ahead with the one-day trip even after the Surat-based Federation of Traders' Association, which had extended the invitation, ended up withdrawing it.
After the invitation was cancelled, Kejriwal tweeted, "Anandiben ji has surely cancelled my trip to Surat. However, Lord Shiva has called me. To have His darshan, I will go to Somnath on 9th July. That programme stands."
The tweet was on the lines of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's famous line on the day he filed his nomination in Varanasi for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls:"Maa Ganga ne bulaya hai."
The Patels, who supported the BJP over the last three decades, have been moving away from the party in recent years.
AAP has been looking to tap into this huge vote base, with Kejriwal tweeting a video questioning the sedition charges slapped against Patidar leader Hardik Patel. The Delhi CM is scheduled to meet influential leaders from the Patel community in Rajkot during his visit.
While in Saurashtra, Kejriwal is also set to meet farmers affected by drought and land acquisition.
Besides the outreach to the Patidars, AAP has also held huge protests across the state over high electricity tariffs, the Rs 10,000 crore Talati recruitment scam and the scrapping of semester systems in schools.
The party has also organised ward-wise protests across major cities of Gujarat over demolition of slums and lack of basic amenities.
Kejriwal's visit to Gujarat comes at a time when tensions between his government and the Centre are increasing over the arrest of AAP MLAs. The last time Kejriwal visited Gujarat was in March 2014, during the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls.
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