- Thursday, January 16, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on unveiled its chief ministerial face for the upcoming assembly elections in the western Indian state of Gujarat to spearhead its mission to dethrone the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of prime minister Narendra Modi which has been ruling his home state for more than two decades now.
Arvind Kejriwal, party convener and chief minister of Delhi, announced Isudan Gadhvi, the AAP’s national joint general secretary, as the chief ministerial pick.
The 40-year-old Gadhvi is a son of a farmer and belongs to the politically influential Other Backward Class in Gujarat. A member of the AAP’s national executive, Gadhvi is a former media professional who worked in television and anchored a popular news show on Gujarat-related affairs — Mahamanthan — on VTV Gujarati.
Gadhvi has also worked in a popular Doordarshan (India’s national broadcaster) show called Yojana. Between 2007 and 2011, he worked at ETV Gujarati as a grassroots journalist in Porbandar. He had also exposed a massive Rs 150-crore scam of illegal deforestation in the state’s Dang and Kaparada talukas following which the state government was forced to take action.
He emerged as a popular face of the AAP in the state ever since joining the party in June last year. Kejriwal had said at the time that Gadhvi sacrificed a promising career to clean the mess that the BJP and opposition Indian National Congress allegedly created in the state.
In May this year, AAP planned a ‘Parivartan Yatra’ (march for change) aiming to bring change in Gujarat politics and Gadhvi was one of the leaders who led it from the front.
“I thank the Aam Aadmi Party, Arvind Kejriwal and especially the people of Gujarat for showing faith in me and giving such a big responsibility to a common man like me. I promise that by becoming a servant of the people, I will always work in the public interest,” Gadhvi said after Kejriwal announced his pick.
The Election Commission of India on Thursday (3) announced the schedule of Gujarat elections that will be held on December 1 and 5.
The results will be announced on December 8.
