Isudan Gadhvi joined AAP in June last year.
New Delhi:
Arvind Kejriwal today declared that former TV anchor Isudan Gadhvi would be the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s chief ministerial candidate for Gujarat, where the party is campaigning aggressively to try and oust the ruling BJP.
Isudan Gadhvi, a former journalist and TV anchor, won 73 per cent of the votes in an AAP survey on who should be its Gujarat chief minister face.
AAP 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 Gadhvi 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.”
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 his initiation into politics and his entry into AAP. After a meeting with the AAP chief, his decision was sealed.
“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.
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.
