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Journalism of Courage
DAYS after he found himself out in the cold, as his party NCP forged an alliance with the Congress, Kandhal Jadeja has found a new home, in the Samajwadi Party.
The two-time MLA from Kutiyana seat in Porbandar district, the son of the late ‘Godmother’ Santokben Jadeja, and a strongman with multiple murder cases against him over the years, Jadeja has secured the SP ticket from Kutiyana – living up to the threat that he wouldn’t fade away quietly.
Santokben too had won the Kutiyana seat in 1990 as a candidate of the Janata Dal.
On November 11, Jadeja had led a crowd to file his nomination as a candidate of the NCP, before the party apparently gave him the go-ahead. The NCP was in negotiations with the Congress for a seat-sharing arrangement at the time. This resulted in three seats coming to the NCP, Umreth, Naroda and Devgadh Baria – meaning Kutiyana was left for a Congress candidate.
The Congress has since fielded Nathabhai Odedara from the seat, while the BJP ticket has gone to Kutiyana Municipality chief Dheliben Odedara.
Jadeja’s office said that he has now filed a fresh set of nomination papers as a candidate of the SP, which claims to be fielding 23 nominees for the Assembly elections. SP Gujarat unit general secretary Ram Sevak Sahani confirmed the party’s support to Jadeja, adding: “He wants to contest the election as an official nominee of the SP. We have assured him our full support even if his nomination papers as an SP candidate are rejected on technical grounds (as he earlier filed papers as an NCP nominee) and he has to contest as an Independent.”
Earlier in the day, in his resignation letter, Jadeja, 50, wrote about being “the lone candidate from the NCP to emerge victorious in the 2017 Assembly election”. “I had set a record and remained loyal to the party. And yet, I have been denied a party ticket,” he said. Efforts to reach him were not successful.
Jadeja first won from Kutiyana in 2012 as an NCP candidate, when the party had a poll alliance with the Congress. He won again in 2017 though the NCP and Congress had parted ways, and even NCP Gujarat chief Jayant Patel failed to win.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress had fielded Jadeja from the Porbandar seat. However, he had lost to sitting MP Vitthal Radadiya of the BJP.
Jadeja’s equation with NCP leaders had been strained since August 2017, when he backed BJP candidates in the Rajya Sabha elections, though the NCP had a tie-up with the Congress. He repeated the same in the Rajya Sabha elections in 2020, ignoring the NCP’s warnings.
Announcing that they had accepted Jadeja’s resignation, the NCP state chief said: “That is a closed chapter now. A bahu gadbad karta (He was causing lots of mischief) by voting for others while we are a constituent of the UPA. I used to get reprimanded by the party high command every time… We have lost a worker who had the ability to win elections, but party discipline matters.”
SP leader Sahani claimed they have “ties with the Jadejas going back many years”. “When Bhura Munja (Kandhal’s uncle) had contested Lok Sabha elections, Netaji (late SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav) had campaigned for him,” Sahani said.
Asked about Jadeja’s criminal background, the SP leader refused to comment.
Belonging to the Mer community of Porbandar, Jadeja was convicted in April this year by a Rajkot court for escaping from judicial custody in 2007, and sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10,000. His wife Manisha Karavadra was also an accused, along with 11 others, but they were acquitted for want of evidence.
The case related to Jadeja’s escape from a Rajkot hospital while he was under judicial custody on charges of murdering BJP councillor Keshu Odedra in 2005. For the murder, the accused were Santokben, her three other sons – Karan, Bhoja and Kano – and five more. In 2011, while the case of escape from judicial custody was pending against Jadeja, a Porbandar court had acquitted him and nine others in the murder case for want of evidence.
Jadeja had earlier stood trial in the murder of one Prakash Modha in 1995, but was acquitted by a Porbandar court in 2006. In March last year, Jadeja and six others were acquitted in a 2018 case of allegedly threatening and abusing a Porbandar hotelier.
He has faced cases under the now-repealed TADA Act as well as under the Explosives Act, and charges of rioting, forgery, resisting lawful custody, criminal intention to commit extortion, voluntarily causing hurt, criminal intimidation, causing disappearance of evidence etc. His affidavit shows one TADA case still pending against his name.
