The BJP's Rivaba Jadeja, who is the wife of Indian cricketer Ravindra Jadeja’s, won from the Jamnagar North seat, beating her nearest rival Aam Aadmi Party’s Karsan Karmur by a margin of more than 40, 000 votes, with the party on track for a massive record win in the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Congress’ Bhipendrasinh Jadeja finished third.
Rivaba Jadeja’s name figured in the first list of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates for the state elections. She was given the ticket after the party dropped incumbent legislator Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, also known as Hakubha.
Hakubha had won the seat on a Congress ticket in 2012 and later joined the BJP. He won in the 2017 by-poll.
Rivaba Jadeja had a stint in the Karni Sena, an organisation that hit the headlines in 2018 for its protests against director Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s movie Padmavat, before joining the BJP ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
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While she and her husband campaigned aggressively, the 32-year-old initially faced problems in garnering the support on the ground, but that resistance faded as national-level leaders were roped in to back her. She also faced a familial challenge in the form of her sister-in-law Naynaba Jadeja, an active Congress member who lent her support to Bhipendrasinh Jadeja.
In an earlier conversation with Moneycontrol, Naynaba Jadeja said: “I too had staked a claim for a ticket from Jamnagar, but the party denied it. There are senior leaders at the helm of the Congress who understand the ground situation better. Had they given me a ticket, the contest would have been between me and my sister-in-law.”
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Rivaba Jadeja, who is related to Congress veteran Hari Singh Solanki, studied mechanical engineering at the Atmiya Institute of Technology and Science, Rajkot. She got married to Ravindra Jadeja on April 17, 2016.
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