The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) today announced that it would face the voters of Gujarat with the face of Isudan Gadhvi, who has been the party’s national joint general secretary, as the chief ministerial candidate in front. It is expected, however, that the party’s national convenor Arvind Kejriwal will remain the foremost star campaigner.
Continuing with the ‘referendum’ gimmick it has been employing since 2013 when it ran a 49-day government in Delhi, the AAP said that the people of the state had chosen Isudan Gadhvi in communications to the party. “Last week we invited public opinion, and 16,48,500 responses were received and 73% of them named Isudanbhai Gadhvi”, Kejriwal claimed.
Kejriwal had urged people to contact the party through SMS, WhatsApp, voice mail and e-mail to give their views about who should be the CM candidate from the party in the state for the elections, due to be held in two phases — on 1 and 5 December.
Who is Isudan Gadhvi?
Isudan Gadhvi, born on 10 January 1982, who got as many as 73% votes in a poll conducted by the party, is a former journalist. He graduated from Gujarat Vidyapeeth, Ahmedabad in 2005 where he pursued a postgraduate degree in journalism and mass communication and then worked as a journalist
Isudan Gadhvi began his career in journalism with a Doordarshan show called Yojana. He went on to work at ETV Gujarati as an on-field journalist in Porbandar from 2007 to 2011. He joined VTV Gujarati in 2015 as the youngest channel head in Gujarati media. He was the anchor of a popular news show Mahamanthan on the channel, popular in rural Gujarat, particularly among farmers.
The career record of Isudan Gadhvi suits the anti-corruption plank of the AAP. He earned his name in journalism by ‘exposing’ a Rs 150 crore scam of illegal deforestation in Dang and Kaparada talukas of Gujarat on his news show, forcing the Gujarat government to take action.
Social background of AAP’s CM candidate
Isudan Gadhvi hails from an OBC family of farmers in Village Pipaliya of District Dwarka. The AAP may play the caste card in this campaign after this selection, keeping in mind the fact that 48% of Gujarat’s population is OBC, journalists associated with Gujarati television channels told Sirf News.
Isudan Gadhvi joined the AAP in June 2021, facilitated by Arvind Kejriwal, who had gone to Ahmedabad to inaugurate AAP’s state headquarters. The Delhi chief minister called Gadhvi’s joining the AAP a “huge sacrifice of a promising career to clean the mess that the ruling party, together with the Congress, had created in Gujarat.”
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