Ahmedabad: A leader of the influential Patidar community in Gujarat, which is due for assembly election in December, carried wads of currency notes to a press conference and claimed the ruling BJP offered him Rs 1 crore to join the party.

Narendra Patel spoke to the press within hours of “joining” the BJP, which denied the allegations.

“Narendra Patel’s U-turn was a pre-planned drama... The Congress cannot sway the people of Gujarat with this kind of drama,” NDTV quoted BJP spokesperson Bharat Pandya as saying.

Despite the statement, another Patidar leader, Nikhil Sawani, on Monday morning said he was leaving the BJP, “upset over the Rs 1 crore offered to Patel”.

The Patidar community, once a staunch supporter, is at war with the BJP over its demand for reservation in education and government jobs.

The Patels account for 12-13% of the state’s population and can influence the outcome in around 50 of the state’s 182 seats.

The BJP had on Saturday managed to wean away two close aides of Hardik Patel, the 24-year-old leading the quota stir under the banner of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS), as the Congress, out of power in the western state for 22 years, reaches out to disgruntled groups for an anti-BJP front.

Narendra Patel, the PAAS convenor for north Gujarat, said Varun Patel, who joined the BJP a day earlier, took him for a meeting with state BJP chief Jitubhai Vaghani and some ministers on Sunday.

“He then took me to a room and handed over a bag of Rs 10 lakh cash as token (money) and promised to pay me Rs 90 lakh tomorrow after a party function which I was required to attend,” Patel told a crowded a press conference late on Sunday.

Patel, who presented a scarf and inducted into the BJP in front of the media, said, “It all happened in such a hurry, they immediately called the media to present me and I had to make that show.”

“They made a deal of Rs 1 crore on me. One crore? Even if they bestow the entire Reserve Bank of India on me, I will not be bought over. Even if I have to die, fighting for the cause,” he said.

The election is a matter of prestige for the BJP, ruling the state for almost 22 successive years, as both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah come from the western state.

The BJP is not only facing angry Patidars but also anti-incumbency. The Dalits and Muslims, too, are upset over violence by cow vigilantes and upper castes.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi will be in Gujarat on Monday and will attend a party rally in Ahmedabad during which other backward class (OBC) leader Alpesh Thakor will join the party.

Thakor heads the OBC, ST, SC Ekta Manch and is the founder of the Gujarat Kshatriya-Thakor Sena.