NEW DELHI, Nov 4: The television anchor-turned-politician Isudan Gadhvi will be the Aam Aadmi Party’s chief ministerial face in the Gujarat state Assembly elections due next month. The AAP chief and the Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday announced Gadhvi’s choice after asking people in the state to suggest a name who they want to see as the chief minister if the AAP win the state Assembly elections.
Announcing his name, Mr Kejriwal said as many as 16 lakh people participated in the survey the AAP conducted regarding its CM face and 73% suggested Gadhvi’s name. The AAP had put out a phone number, asking people to call and name their choice. The party had picked Bhagwant Singh Mann as its chief ministerial candidate in Punjab after a similar poll.
Isudan Gadhvi, 40, joined AAP in June last year. He anchored one of the most highly rated TV news in Gujarat before he debuted in politics. “A humble farmer’s son like me has been given such a huge responsibility in Arvind Kejriwal’s politics,” Mr Gadhavi said in an emotional speech after the announcement. “I will try to do the best I can. God has given me everything. Now I want to give my fellow Gujaratis everything they need…I will serve the people until my last breath.”
The AAP’s state unit president Gopal Italia, who recently faced a lot of controversy over using some objectionable terms against the BJP, was also in the race. It was Mr Italia who had reached out to Mr Gadhvi last year, brought him to politics and into the AAP after a meeting with Kejriwal. Gadhavi anchored one of the most highly rated TV news in Gujarat before he debuted in politics.
“Arvind Kejriwal told me, you raise issues of the common man, people like you should join politics. If people like you and I don’t join politics, then the corrupt people will have a free run. Politics is not my desire but my compulsion,” Mr Gadhvi said.
Gujarat will vote on December 1 and 5 and the results will be declared on December 8. Mr Gadhvi belongs to the Other Backward Class (OBC), which accounts for 48 per cent of Gujarat’s population. The AAP has mounted a mega campaign in Gujarat, determined to disrupt what has traditionally been a BJP versus Congress fight and emerge as the main rival to the ruling party.
He is the national joint general secretary of the AAP and its main campaigner in the State, crisscrossing the length and breadth of the state addressing public meetings, holding roadshows and rallies across the State.
(Manas Dasgupta)
