Hunter hunted? AAP’s Yuvrajsinh Jadeja held for extortion has long been known as ‘whistleblower’

Jadeja was arrested on Friday night after a daylong questioning session in an extortion complaint filed by the police, based on allegations made by those the activist had purported to expose, and is on remand with the Bhavnagar Special Operations Group (SOG) till April 29, facing charges of extorting Rs 1 crore from the alleged accused in the dummy candidate case.

The incident seems to have united the state units of the AAP and the Congress against the Gujarat BJP government.

Gujarat AAP president Isudan Gadhvi on Friday said, “Yuvrajsinh is the voice of the youth and the one who has exposed several paper leaks. It is curious that neither the masterminds of these paper leaks, nor those in the dummy candidates scam, or the police sub-inspectors who paid Rs 40 lakh to participate in training — are caught yet. Where did this money come from? It’s on record that till date, all paper leaks that have been exposed were flagged by Yuvrajsinh. It is natural then that powerful forces would be angry with him.”

One of the first leaders to come out in Jadeja’s support was the Congress’s leader in the Assembly, Amit Chavda. In a statement issued almost simultaneously with Gadhvi, Chavda, condemning Jadeja’s arrest, demanded to know why “someone like Yuvrajsinh, who complained and exposed the paper-leak and dummy-candidate scams with evidence”, was being sent to jail.

“This government with a 156 (seat) majority should have shown its 56 (inch) chest to the ones who leaked the paper, to the ones who were involved in the dummy candidate racket (in Bhavnagar) and should have sent the accused to jail. Instead, in this autocratic government, those who are bringing issues of the common people to the fore, those who are exposing the scams of the government, they are being sent to jail”.

Gujarat state Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said, “This is not a Congress and AAP thing,” but that the government needs to answer why it had never spoken about these leaks. “It’s not possible that such big scams went on without anyone in the government knowing about these,” he added.

In an interview given to this paper earlier, Jadeja had said, “I joined the AAP thinking I can work better in it for youth, education and employment. It was not just to question the government in power. That I had been doing before I was there in the AAP. I held my first protest against a paper leak at a recruitment exam back in 2019. I had collected evidence and put the government in power on the spot.”

In another interview given in November 2022, Jadeja had said he was born and brought up in Gondal, and studied there till his bachelors in 2009. A B.Com student, he simultaneously pursued a diploma in computer science from his hometown. Between 2009 and 2012, he also prepared for competitive exams, and helped his family’s stock trading business.

When the 2008 and 2011 recessions hit the globe, he decided to look for a different avenue — a viable business to start on his own — and came to Gandhinagar in 2012 for the Vibrant Gujarat event. “I came to Gandhinagar in 2012 with a new business idea in search of funds through Vibrant Gujarat,” said the AAP leader.

“On the side, I also taught students preparing for competitive exams like the state civil services and other state recruitment exams. I myself sat for a different exam — Gujarat Public State Services Class I and II — because I had decided if I had to do a government job, it had to be an officer grade one. I sat for the exam in 2014 and 2016, but could not cross the preliminary round. So I chose to continue teaching students from different communities, a journey that began in August 2016 and continued till 2021.”

Even as the proud teacher helped students crack various state-level competitive exams — around 8,000 students he has taught have qualified for various jobs, he claims — he himself made the grade in one. “In 2014, I qualified for the post of constable in the Police Recruitment Board exam. I was selected to work in Modasa in Aravalli district, but rejected the offer. I had sat for the exam under family pressure, as they wanted me to get a government job and settle down, get married. But I wanted different things in life,” said Jadeja.

In December 2022, the AAP announced Jadeja as the party’s candidate for the Dehgam seat in Gandhinagar district, though he later opted out of the contest, claiming he would be the party’s “star campaigner” instead. The AAP won five seats in the Gujarat Assembly, making a debut in the state.

Last year, Jadeja had demanded a CBI probe into all government recruitments since 2014, in Gujarat. He had told The Indian Express in an interview then that he chose that year, because “the corrupt had lost their fear after Narendra Modi exited Gujarat to become Prime Minister”.

At least two exams conducted by the Gujarat Subordinate Services Selection Board (GSSSB) were cancelled following Jadeja’s exposures. However, he claimed he was exposing these leaks in the exam system not as an AAP member, because, “The attitude of the state government is that if someone from the Opposition raises an issue, regardless of how critical it is, they try to bury it with internal inquiries and don’t listen to the voice of the Opposition. It is necessary to speak as a neutral person when you are a student representative, so that people also are not led into thinking that I am doing this for political mileage.”

In February 2023, he bust a fraud in the police sub-inspector recruitment exam 2021, leading to the registration of an FIR at the Dabhoda police station in Gandhinagar. The case of Mayurkumar Tadvi had come to the notice of the Karai Police Academy while they were preparing February 2023 salary slips for the trainees. A total of 582 trainees were selected through a series of tests by the Police Recruitment Board. The police later claimed that a “secret investigation” was held under the vigilance of higher authorities in the academy and that Tadvi was already under watch when Jadeja made the issue public.

The AAP took up the issue of unemployment and paper leaks in a big way in the election campaign. The issue was also picked up by the Congress in the election, eventually leading to the BJP bringing in a new law to prevent paper leaks in February that prescribed a 10-year imprisonment to those found guilty. The Gujarat Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, 2023, defines paper leaks as an “organised crime”.