NE NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI/AHMEDABAD, NOV 4
Arvind Kejriwal on Friday declared former TV anchor Isudan Gadhvi the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s presumptive chief minister for Gujarat, where the party is campaigning aggressively to try and oust the ruling BJP in next month’s assembly election.
Isudan Gadhvi, a former journalist and TV anchor, won 73 per cent of the votes in an AAP survey on who should be its chief ministerial candidate in Gujarat.
AAP had last week asked people to share their views on who should be chief minister through messages, voice mail or email, replicating its Punjab strategy.
Isudan Gadhvi, 40, joined AAP in June last year. He anchored one of the most highly-rated TV news shows in Gujarat before he switched to politics.
“A humble farmer’s son like me has been given such a huge responsibility because of Arvind Kejriwal’s politics,” Mr Gadhvi said in an emotional speech after the announcement, with his mother and wife on stage.
“I will try to do the best I can. God has given me everything. Now I want to give my fellow Gujarati’s everything they need…I will serve the people until my last breath.”
Gopal Italia, the president of AAP’s Gujarat unit, was also in the race. It was Mr Italia who reached out to Mr Gadhvi last year, setting in motion a series of meetings, including one with Mr Kejriwal.
“Arvind Kejriwal told me, you raise issues of the common man on your show, 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, crediting the AAP chief with mentoring him.
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.
AAP has mounted a mega campaign in Gujarat in this election, determined to disrupt what has traditionally been a BJP versus Congress fight. It has positioned itself as the main rival to the ruling BJP, stepping into the gap left by a weak and listless Congress.
