Among BJP’s RS candidates from Gujarat, a former royal and cow breeding cell chief

Desai is not well known outside BJP circles and heads the party’s cow breeding cell. He was an MLA from 2007 to 2012 during the chief ministerial tenure of Narendra Modi. A leader from the Maldhari community, among the Ahmedabad resident’s primary occupations are agriculture, animal breeding, land development, and building construction. The BJP said the former legislator had “served society” the Covid pandemic and the Lumpy virus outbreak.

Jhala, meanwhile, assumed the role of the head of his erstwhile royal family in March 2022, 11 months after the death of his father Digvijaysinh at the age of 89. Kesridevsinh is the 16th descendant of the Jhala family that ruled Wankaner for almost four-and-a-half centuries before it acceded to the Union of India.

The Jhalas have been in politics since Independence. Kesaridevsinh is the lone child of Digvijaysinh who was elected to Lok Sabha from Surendanagar in 1979 and 1984 on Congress tickets and was India’s first environment minister. Digvijaysinh’s younger brother Janaksinh was elected the MLA from Wankaner in 1975 while their father Pratapsinh was elected from Wankaner in 1952. Kesaridevsinh’s maternal uncle Ajay Singh served as the Railway Minister in the V P Singh government.

The Rajya Sabha nominee holds a degree in tourism and leisure management from the University of Huddersfield in the UK and formally joined the BJP in June 2011 in the presence of Narendra Modi, then the Gujarat CM who was hosted by the descendants of the erstwhile princely states in Saurashtra. Kesridevsinh served as the vice president of the BJP’s district unit for the undivided Rajkot district as well as Morbi district after it was carved out of Rajkot and Wankaner in 2013.

The BJP said Kesridevsinh’s name was second on the party’s shortlist for the Wankaner Assembly seat for the 2017 and 2022 Assembly elections. “He has been a very active leader. He has served as BJP’s in-charge for Wankaner taluka and Wankaner town units. He has been at the forefront of BJP’s campaigns for Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Morbi in recent years,” Durlabhji Dethariya, who served as the president of the BJP’s Morbi district unit till his election as MLA from Tankara in Morbi last December, told The Indian Express.

Hours after the announcement of their candidature, Desai and Jhala filed their nomination papers in Gandhinagar. Both candidates thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other party leaders after filing their papers. The elections are slated to be held since the terms of Jaishankar, Jugalji Thakor, and Dinesh Anavadiya were set to be over in August 2023.