As Kshatriya-Dalit tensions simmer in Rajkot, who are the Jadejas of Gondal, family in the middle of the row?

However, the Jadejas seem to have their support base in Gondal intact. “The Gondal APMC (Agricultural Produce Market Committee) is Gujarat’s biggest marketing yard and is on course to become the country’s biggest … The main reasons for its success are peace and security. The yard largely owes its success to Jayrajsinh and his family. Gondal is Ganesh’s family and when baseless allegations were levelled against him, Gondal town, Gondal taluka, and the Gondal APMC observed a strike to show solidarity,” Gondal APMC chairperson and BJP’s Rajkot district president Alpesh Dholariya told The Indian Express on June 12, when the Dalit community held a rally from Junagadh to Gondal.

During the Lok Sabha elections, Jayrajsinh had taken the lead in assuaging the Kshatriya community’s anger against former Union Minister Parshottam Rupala who had drawn their ire for saying that Kshatriya kings had broken bread with the British and given away their daughters in marriage for the fear of prosecution. Rupala, who is from the Patidar community, had made the remarks at a Dalit community event in March.

Sitting Gondal MLA Geetaba Jadeja with husband Jayrajsinh. (Express)

Mediating between Rupala, the BJP’s Rajkot candidate, and the Kshatriya community at his farmhouse, Jayrajsinh declared that the issue was done and dusted after the former Union Minister reportedly apologised. However, the Kshatriyas who occupy the top slot in the caste hierarchy in Gujarat continued their protest and urged people to defeat the BJP. Nonetheless, Rupala won from Rajkot while the BJP bagged 25 of the 26 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

This is not the first time that the Jadejas are in the news for their alleged run-ins with the law. In the early 1980s, Jayrajsinh who was a minor at the time was booked for allegedly stabbing a gatekeeper to death at a magician’s show in Gondal. He and a few others were also arrested for allegedly shooting a police sub-inspector dead after the latter cracked down on the Shakti Group of which Jayrajsinh was a member. He was later acquitted in both cases.

Rivalries and violence

The Jadeja family’s political innings began with Jayrajsinh’s father Temubha Jadeja, who was a farmer from Hadamtala village in Kotda Sangani taluka. Temubha was elected the taluka panchayat president in 1985-’86. Jayrajsinh, the second of Temubha’s three sons, was elected to the board of directors of the Gondal Nagrik Sahkari Bank in the mid-1990s and became its vice president in 1996.

The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the emergence of Mahipatsinh Jadeja, a Kshatriya from Ribda village in Gondal taluka, as a strongman. He won the 1990 Assembly election from Gondal as an Independent. Meanwhile, Jayanti Dhol, a Patidar farmer leader of the BJP, also aspired to contest the polls but was denied a ticket in that election.

Sitting Gondal MLA Geetaba Jadeja with son Jyotiradityasinh, popularly known as Ganesh. (Express)

As Mahipatsinh retained the seat in 1995 and his clout grew further, Dhol propped up Jayrajsinh as the BJP candidate in the 1998 election. This marked the beginning of the rivalry between the two Kshatriya leaders.

In 1998, despite being booked for an alleged poll code violation, Jayrajsinh defeated Mahipatsinh to help the BJP win Gondal for the first time and became the second non-Patidar ever to win the seat. “Ganesh was a 58-day-old infant when his father won his first Assembly election,” said a source close to the family.

In 2001, Jayrajsinh was booked on allegations of attempted murder. The following year, Vinu Shingala, a Patidar leader in the BJP, lobbied for the Gondal ticket. He was eventually denied a ticket and Jayrajsinh won the seat for the second straight time by again defeating Mahipatsinh.

In the years to come, the Jayrajsinh-Shingala rivalry turned bloody. In May 2003, Shingala and his aide Nilesh Raiyani were booked for allegedly murdering Jayrajsinh’s supporter Vikramsinh Rana over a land dispute. Raiyani was shot dead in February 2004 while Shingala was killed the following month in Rajkot. Jayrajsinh was booked for both the murders and was subsequently arrested. With Patidar anger simmering over the twin murders, Jayrajsinh lost the 2007 Assembly election to the NCP’s Chandu Vaghasiya, a Patidar.

The Kshatriya leader got a breather after trial courts acquitted him in both the murder cases and in 2012, he made a comeback by winning Gondal for the third time. He defeated former Gujarat Home Minister Gordhan Zadaphia, a Patidar who had fallen out with then Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Jayrajsinh’s joy seemed to be short lived as the Gujarat High Court in 2017 overturned his acquittal in the Raiyani murder case and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The Supreme Court later granted him bail on the condition that he would not enter Gujarat. In the meantime, Dhol again lobbied for the Gondal ticket but the BJP chose Geetaba who won the 2017 Assembly polls.

Ahead of the state elections in 2022, Geetaba faced a challenge from Mahipatsinh’s son Anirudhsinh who sought a BJP ticket while promising to end “gundagardi (hooliganism)” in Gondal. Aniruddhsinh spent almost two decades in jail for shooting dead then Gondal MLA Popat Sorathiya in broad daylight in 1988. It was after Sorathiya’s murder that marked Mahipatsinh’s rise in the area. But the BJP denied Aniruddhsinh and preferred Geetaba who again won the election.