Who is Isudan Gadhvi?

Isudan Gadhvi was named Aam Aadmi Party’s chief ministerial face for the upcoming Gujarat Assembly elections. Gadhvi is a television journalist-turned-politician and one of Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) most prominent leaders in Gujarat.

The
Election Commission announced on Thursday that elections to the
182-member Gujarat Assembly will take place in two phases. The first phase of
polls will be held on December 1 and the second phase on December 5.

The electoral
contest in Gujarat has traditionally been between the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) and the Congress. The BJP has been in power in the state for a straight
25 years. The Congress has kept bleeding since 1995 pulling a surprise in the
2017 elections where the party won 77 seats. However, as years went by,
Congress kept losing MLAs and its current strength in the Gujarat Assembly is
62.

Arvind
Kejriwal’s AAP has emerged as a disruptor in the scheme of things. While neither
Congress nor BJP take the Delhi CM’s party seriously in the Gujarat context,
AAP believes it can not only score big but even form the government in Gujarat.
In an interview with Indian Express, Isudan Gadhvi said a few weeks ago that
the AAP is not a third party in Gujarat but the opposition.

Who is
Isudan Gadhvi?

Isudan
Gadhvi was born on January 10, 1982 in Gujarat’s Pipaliya village. Gadhvi’s
village is located near Jamkhambhaliya town in Devbhoomi, Dwarka. Gadhvi’s
father is Kherajbhai Gadhvi, a farmer by profession.

Gadhvi has
a Masters degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from Gujarat Vidyapeeth.
He graduated in 2005.

In his
early years as a journalist, Isudan Gadhvi worked for a popular show on India’s
state-run channel Doordarshan called ‘Yojana’. He subsequently moved to ETV Gujarati
as an on-field journalist. Gadhvi is credited with exposing the deforestation
scam in Dang and Kaparada talukas in Gujarat. It was this story that cemented
Isudan Gadhvi’s reputation as a fearless journalist.

In 2015,
Isudan Gadhvi took over the reins of VTV Gujarati at age of 32. He
subsequently ran a TV show called Mahamanthan. The shows popularity across
rural Gujarat gave him a big public profile.

Gadhvi
joined the Aam Aadmi Party in June 2021. “I joined the media to serve people
and the people of Gujarat liked me. I found that by remaining in the media
industry, I can serve only a few people, so I left the industry and joined
politics so that I can work for a large number of people,” he had said.