'Hello MLA...': Ravindra Jadeja’s post after wife Rivaba's Guj poll win
Having joined the BJP in 2019, Rivaba Jadeja - formerly head of the Karni Sena's womens wing - made her electoral debut this month.
India cricketer Ravindra Jadeja tweeted Friday to congratulate his wife Rivaba Jadeja, who won the Jamnagar (north) constituency in the 2022 Gujarat Assembly election. He tweeted: "Hello MLA... you truly deserve it. The people of Jamnagar have triumphed. I thank everyone from the bottom of my heart... works of Jamnagar will be very good."
Having joined the BJP in 2019, Rivaba Jadeja - formerly head of the Karni Sena's womens wing - made her electoral debut this month and marked it with a win, beating Karshanbhai of the Aam Aadmi Party by 53,570 votes and the Congress' Bipendrasinh Jadeja by 65,561 votes.
She has a degree in Mechanical Engineering and married Ravindra Jadeja in 2016.
The Jamnagar (north) seat was won by the Congress' Dharmendrasinh Jadeja in 2012; he beat the BJP's Mulubhai Ayar Bela by nearly 12,000 votes. He switched sides five years later and won the seat again - this time for the BJP and by more than twice the earlier margin.
Battling anti-incumbency, however, the BJP opted to drop Dharmaendrasinh for the 2022 poll and drafted in Rivaba Jadeja, seeking to capitalise also on her star husband.
Also Read | 'Women can fulfil dreams post marriage': Rivaba Jadeja on Gujarat polls contest
Rivaba Jadeja received her husband's backing - he campaigned with her and made appeals on social media - but much of the pre-poll attention was on potential domestic strife, given that Ravindra Jadeja's father and sister campaigned for the Congress candidate for this seat.
That was dismissed by both sides though, with Rivaba Jadeja telling news agency ANI: "Not the first time two members of a party are associated with two different ideologies. He is speaking as a worker of another party and not as my father-in-law. It is his personal matter. I believe in the people of Jamnagar..."
