Who Is Isudan Gadhvi, AAP's Chief Ministerial Candidate For Gujarat

Aam Admi Party (AAP) chief and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal on Friday announced Isudan Gadhvi as the party's chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming Gujarat elections. 

On October 29, Kejriwal had asked AAP members to send their views through WhatsApp, SMS, email and voice mail regarding the CM candidature. He gave a deadline of November 3 evening and said that the face of the party for the state elections will be announced the next day.

Kejriwal said Gadhvi, 40, got as many as 73 per cent votes in the poll conducted by the party. Gadhvi was pitted against state party unit chief Gopal Italia, who played a key role in the Patidar community agitation. 

Gadhvi hails from a farmers’ family in Dwarka district’s Pipaliya village and belongs to the other backward castes which account for 48 per cent of Gujarat's population.

An erstwhile journalist, Gadhvi began his career as an anchor at Doordarshan. He used to host the popular show --- 'Yojana'. From 2007 to 2011, he worked at ETV Gujarati as an on-field journalist in Porbandar.

Later, he exposed a Rs 150 crore scam of illegal deforestration in Dang and Kaparada talukas of Gujarat on his news show, after which the Gujarat government was forced to take action. This helped Gadhi to shoot to fame.

In 2015, he joined  VTV Gujarati in 2015 as the youngest channel head in Gujarati media. His show was popular in rural Gujarat, particularly among the farmers.

In 2021, when Kejriwal was in Ahmedabad to inaugurate AAP's state headquarters, Gadhvi joined the party.

 The Delhi Chief Minister called Gadhvi's joining AAP a "huge sacrifice of a promising career to clean the mess that the ruling party, together with Congress, had created in Gujarat."