Constituency Watch | Ravindra Jadeja’s wife to open innings from a strong BJP bastion

While Ravindra is a native of Jamnagar and the couple spend considerable time in the city, they are based in Rajkot, about 100 km away, where they run a restaurant.

Since joining the BJP, Rivaba has been active in Jamnagar, reaching out to villages around the city, interacting especially with the women there, talking about various government welfare schemes, distributing sanitary napkins and helping open Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana accounts for girls in post offices.

In August this year, the PM had praised Rivaba after she helped open 101 such accounts through the Shree Matrushakti Charitable Trust, an NGO she runs with her husband.

Her nomination by the BJP incidentally came a week after Parimal Nathwani, Director, Corporate Affairs, at Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), appealed to all parties “not to give tickets to candidates who would allow crime to flourish in Jamnagar”. “Instead of leaders with negative image / criminal tendencies, the city should get educated & civilised leaders for peace, safety, prosperity & development,” Nathwani tweeted on November 3, hours after the Election Commission of India announced dates for the Gujarat polls.

The country’s largest private oil refiner and one of the biggest business conglomerates of the country, RIL has a refinery in Moti Khavdi village in Jamnagar district. It falls under Jamnagar Rural constituency, currently represented by Agriculture Minister Raghavji Patel.

Sources in the BJP said Hakhuba was becoming “too strong” for the comfort of the ruling party. “His name is alleged to be linked with some history-sheeters, and that was making many important people nervous,” a party functionary said, adding that it had been clear that Hakhuba would not be renominated.

Attempts to reach Hakhuba were not successful.

Earlier known as just Jamnagar, before it was divided into Jamnagar North and Jamnagar South, this Assembly constituency has been a bastion of the BJP since 1985. The BJP won it five consecutive times between 1985 and 2007. In fact, the first to breach the fortress was Hakhuba, who won in 2012 as a Congress candidate, defeating former minister and BJP candidate Mulubhai Bera by a margin of 9,448 votes.

BJP sources say that the party’s 2012 election too was on account of its own mistakes. “The BJP erred in fielding Bera from Jamnagar North, an urban seat, while he had his base in Bhanvad, a rural seat which was abolished in delimitation. He was treated as an outsider and the Congress capitalised on it,” a leader says.

But Jivan Kumbharvadiya, president of the Jamnagar district unit of the Congress, disagrees, claiming that the caste profile of the 2.63 lakh voters in Jamnagar North makes it a natural seat for his party. He points out that the constituency has 43,000 voters from the minority community (Muslim), around 24,000 Dalits, 23,000-odd people belonging to the Kshatriya community, and some 7,000 Dalvadi community members.

Kumbharvadiya, who was fielded by the Congress from Jamnagar North last time, adds: “These are communities who traditionally vote for the Congress. Hakhubha had worked hard and won the seat for us in 2012. After he defected to the BJP, and no one was coming forward to take him on in the 2017 Assembly elections, the Congress fielded me at the last minute. I had just two weeks for campaigning and despite that I managed to get 41,000 votes. This is evidence of the strong core Congress constituency in Jamnagar North.”

However, the victory margin of Hakhuba against Kumbharvadiya was a huge 40,963 votes, the biggest in the history of the seat.

Hakhuba was among the dozen-odd Congress MLAs who defected to the BJP during the Rajya Sabha elections of August 2017. He is alleged to have persuaded at least five of them to switch over with him.

Not surprisingly, despite the star appeal of Raviba’s husband, the BJP is apprehensive about the damage a sulking Hakhuba could cause. A BJP leader in Jamnagar says: “Historically, people of this area have voted against the Congress. It lost this seat before 1985 too — in 1962, 1967, 1972 and 1975. The victories of 1980 and 2012 were exceptions. There are committed BJP voters here and Rivaba’s celebrity will attract new voters. We shouldn’t have any problem retaining the seat unless Hakhuba chooses to be a spoilsport… He is connected to the grassroots and has the capacity to influence results.”

The Congress candidate from Jamnagar North is Bipendrasinh Jadeja, a businessman who has served in the youth wing of the party and is currently the president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Jamnagar. Like Rivaba, Bipendrasinh too is a Kshatriya.

Kumbharvadiya says Bipendrasinh holds advantage as he is a local, unlike the Jadejas who live in Rajkot. “Therefore, the Kshatriya community, businessmen, traders etc will vote for our candidate,” he says.

A majority of the wards of the Jamnagar Municipal Corporation falling in the Assembly seat were also held by the Congress, he says.

Rivaba was not available for a comment, but sources said she had hoped to get a ticket from Jamnagar Rural, as she has worked in the villages there. “But the BJP preferred to field her from Jamnagar North, an urban seat. However, given her celebrity, that should not be a problem,” a leader says.