Meeting called to pacify district-level leaders

District party leader Satish Patel said, “The meeting was called as all district leaders were feeling slighted about being ignored. All of us are residents of Vadodara and this being an event of such a large scale, supported by the state government, not extending an invite to the office bearers and elected representatives is very insulting. We expressed our grievance with Jaydhratsinh Parmar and the Vadfest representatives who noted down names of dignitaries from the district. Cabinet Minister Saurabh Patel had also sent his PA to the meeting to ensure that the list of party leaders from the district is furnished to the committee.”

However, district MLAs are displeased that “elected representatives” were ignored. Balkrishna Patel, MLA Dabhoi, said, “We are not opposed to the event. Although they should have at least involved us in the planning stage so that we could have highlighted some things, we do not have grudges that they did not. But not even acknowledging the elected representatives is not acceptable.”