Introduction

After successfully commencing his education, he went on to start a business along with few friends and over the years has proved to be a successful and emerging business leader of that time. Along with running a successful business, he always looked on to the possibilities of serving the needy and hence had initiated various social service initiatives which have tested the time and are still in progress. Being an environment enthusiast, he has also started various environment related reforms like planting trees, water preservations, etc. Over the years, around 10 to 12 crore trees have been planted so far in various districts in North Gujarat and more then 200 check dams have been built under this initiatives along with the support from the Government of Gujarat. Providing affordable education to the poor under the banner of Panchsheel Education Trust has served as boom in the education sector and has added another feather in his social initiatives. With Mahila Gruh Udyog Sahakari Mandali Ltd. he brought all the sakhi mandals of visnagar under one umbrella which helped advance women empowerment.

During the initial years of his association, he has worked actively on the ground as any other dedicated karyakarta for BJP. However, looking to his abilities party had bestowed the responsibility of Taluka Panchayat and Nagarpalika elections until around 2006. He had successfully managed to raise the party cadre during this years and had increased the footprints of the BJP as a party in Mehsana district. In 2007, he was selected as a potential candidate for the seat of Visnagar Vidhansabha, and against all odds, he won the very first election he contested until then with massive lead of 29,898 votes in the constituency which consisted of approximately around 1.8 lac voters. This was just the beginning of his pollical journey which only empowered him more to carry forward the divine act of public service, which he always cherished to work for. This win in 2007 had strengthened the trust which BJP as a party and its leaders had bestowed on him and this trust had only became stronger over the course of time. In 2012, BJP party had again selected him as a potential candidate to contest the polls and this time too, he won the elections with another massive lead of 29,399 votes from visnagar vidhansabha.

During the end of this tenure, i.e. in 2017, Gujarat witnessed an event in the name of ‘Patel Anamat Andolan’ which later turned up to be one of the most unfortunate events which gujarat witnessed and it resulted in few very unfortunate deadths, hundreds of people getting injured and hundreds of public and private properties getting destroyed across the state of Gujarat. This event which later turned violent had started in visnagar vidhansabha constituency and hence visnagar became an epicenter of this event. Their was a huge cloud of misinformation spread across the state which resulted in turning the heatwave against the BJP and its leaders. BJP leaders were attacked in multiple cities. Personally, Shri Rushikesh Patel witnessed a crowd burning up and destroying his personal office, his MLA office and other properties belonging to him and they even turned out to burn and destroy his personal residence, however fortunately police arrival avoided anymore mishap. It was a tough year for the BJP party, as their were tons of misinformation’s and fake news spread across the state. And visnagar being the epicentre of it, was the weakest point to crack for the party.

This time too, BJP showed the confidence on Shri Rushikesh Patel for the visnagar vidhansabha constituency. And fighting against all the evils and facing all the backlash, Shri Rushikesh Patel once again emerged as a winner in this constituency which was one of the weakest seat for BJP for 2017 elections. After winning the elections, Shri Rushikesh Patel did not keep any grudge against any man and infact from the very next day he started clearing the air and started visiting people across his constituency to clear out all the misinformation’s spread. He successfully managed to support the people in need and eliminate the cloud of negativity and misinformation which was spread intentionally to weaken BJP as a party. This resulted in winning the hearts of his voters and now their was a cloud of positivity, optimists and confidence. This was reflected in the elections of 2022 werein Shri Rushikesh Patel won with a never before massive lead of 34,405 votes. It is a record in the history of visnagar vidhansabha constituency which has a voter strength of around 2.3 lac voters.

During his tenure as an MLA of Gujarat Legislative Assembly, he has served as a Chairman/Member of various committees at various levels of Gujarat Legislative Assembly. In the period from 2009 to 2012, he has served as District BJP President of Mehsana District and had initiated and completed the construction of the grand district office ‘Kamalam’ of BJP (Gujarat Pradesh). He has also served as a chairman of Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) – Visnagar between 2016-2021. Amongst other recognitions and awards, he was also awarded as ‘Best MLA of Gujarat’ by Shining INDIA. Being a sports lover, he has always encouraged new talent in sports and had also served as a Chairman for ‘Mehsana District Cricket Association’.