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Updated: Apr 19, 2019 15:46 IST

Likening Congress leader Hardik Patel to Hitler, the man who slapped him at a rally in Gujarat’s Surendranagar on Friday, said he had decided in 2015 that he would hit the Patidar leader.

“My wife was pregnant when Patidar agitation happened, she was undergoing treatment at a hospital, I had faced problems then, I had decided then, I’ll hit this man. I have to teach him a lesson anyhow,” the attacker Tarun Gajjar was quoted by ANI as saying

“During his rally in Ahmedabad when I had gone to get medicine for my child, everything was shut down. He shuts down the roads, he shuts down Gujarat whenever he wants to, What is he? Gujarat’s Hitler?” added Gajjar, who was admitted in hospital after being attacked by Congress workers following the slapping incident.

WATCH: Congress leader Hardik Patel slapped at a rally in Gujarat

Hardik Patel had spearheaded the Patel agitation in 2015 demanding that government scrap quotas for Muslims, Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) or reclassify Patels to OBCs, guaranteeing them a share of government jobs and school places.

In August 25, 2015 Patidar rally in Ahmedabad, 14 people had died during clashes with police.

On Friday morning, Gajjar attacked Patel while shouting: “We lost 14 Patidars”, referring to the youths killed in clashes.

Video footage shows the 25-year-old leader addressing a rally where he is thanking people for support and seeking backing for the Congress candidate when a man walks up to him and slaps him.