The Chief Ministerial candidate of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for the Gujarat Assembly Elections, which begin on December 1, is Isudan Gadhvi. Gadhvi is a member of the National Executive and the National Joint General Secretary of the Aam Aadmi Party. He received more than 73% of the vote in an AAP survey to determine a Gujarat CM face.
Isudhan Gadhvi to be AAP’s CM face for Gujarat elections pic.twitter.com/Mt1Zm0qOQ0
— ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2022
Immediately following the announcement of the Gujarat Assembly election poll dates on Thursday, the AAP said that their chief ministerial candidate would be announced on Friday. And accordingly, the party declared that Isudan Gadhvi is their CM candidate in Gujarat.
40-year-old Isudan Gadhvi formerly worked in the media. He served as the host of the renowned news programme “Mahamanthan” on VTV Gujarati. He is from a prosperous farming family in Saurashtra.
Gadhvi is well-liked in Gujarat and is regarded as a public figure. He belongs to the Other Backward Classes (OBC), which account for 48% of Gujarat’s populace.
Media to politics
Isudan Gadhvi began his journalism career with Doordarshan’s renowned show ‘Yojana.’ From 2007 until 2011, he worked as an on-field journalist for ETV Gujarati in Porbandar. He became the youngest channel head in Gujarati media when he joined VTV Gujarati in 2015. His show was well received in rural Gujarat, especially amongst farmers.
Gadhvi stepped down from his post at the pinnacle of his journalistic career. Gopal Italia, another AAP leader, persuaded Gadhvi to join the party at that point. In June 2021, Gadhvi joined the AAP owing to Arvind Kejriwal, who had travelled to Ahmedabad to inaugurate the AAP’s state headquarters.
Allegations of being drunk and creating ruckus
Gadhvi was among the AAP workers who demonstrated against the state administration at the BJP headquarters in Gandhinagar on December 20 in response to the leaked examination paper. Shradhha Rajput, a BJP worker, said that Gadhvi misbehaved and sexually assaulted her while inebriated during the demonstration.
Gadhvi, she said, misbehaved with her and her coworkers. They allegedly continued to misbehave after they were told to maintain decorum. She further said that Aam Aadmi Party women workers attacked them and struck them with sticks. Rajput further said that when the crowd dispersed, Gopal Italia and Isudan Gadhvi misbehaved with her, and she filed a complaint about that as well. Gadhvi was subjected to a medical examination in response to her accusation, as Gujarat is a dry state.
Gandhinagar Police booked Gadhvi on January 1 under the Prohibition Act. According to a police statement, Gadhvi’s medical report dated December 20 reportedly indicated 0.0545 per cent alcohol content in his blood.
Support for anti-Gujarat ‘activists’ Medha Patkar and Teesta Setalvad
On August 30, Isudan Gadhvi took to Twitter to support a video that showed the anti-Gujarat ‘activist’ Medha Patkar and the self-proclaimed ‘activist’ Teesta Setalvad in a positive light. Teesta Setalvad is currently in custody in a case of forgery and falsifying information about the 2002 Gujarat riots.
ये भाजपा मॉडल है ! जितना आप गुनाह ज़्यादा करोगे उतना उनको पद मिलेगा ! https://t.co/Dkosvb0ug9
— Isudan Gadhvi (@isudan_gadhvi) August 30, 2022
Gadhvi retweeted a message from AAP politician Sanjay Singh. Sanjay Singh’s tweet featured a video that aimed to depict anti-Gujarat ‘activists’ Medha Patkar and Teesta Setalvad favourably while denigrating Delhi LG Vinay Kumar Saxena.
Gujarat state assembly elections
The Election Commission of India (ECI) announced the dates for the Gujarat Assembly Elections on Thursday. The ECI stated that the elections in the state will be held in two stages on December 1 and December 5, with the results being announced on December 8.
Schedule for GE to the Legislative Assembly of Gujarat.
— Election Commission of India #SVEEP (@ECISVEEP) November 3, 2022
#GujaratElections2022 #ECI pic.twitter.com/0A6CSUIJV5
As per the electoral roll, over 4.9 crore electors are registered in the state of Gujarat, out of which 4.04 lakh are PwD electors. However, the number of senior citizen voters is over 9.8 lakh and 4.61 lakh are first-time voters. The commission said that around 51,782 polling stations would be set up across 182 Assembly Constituencies to ensure a hassle-free comfortable voting experience during the polls.
The term of the Gujarat legislature expires on February 18, 2023. Notably, the competition for Gujarat has heated up, with the BJP and the AAP emerging as the frontrunners. The BJP won 99 of the 182 seats in 2017, while the Congress won 77. In the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the ruling party is vying for a sixth consecutive term.
