Rivaba Jadeja, the wife of cricketer Ravindra Jadeja, is Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) face from the Jamnagar North constituency in the Gujarat Assembly Elections. Despite having no major experience in politics or fighting elections, Rivaba is heading for a comfortable win in Jamnagar North assembly seat, where she is leading with more than 50,000 votes (at the time of writing this article) against AAP’s Karshanbhai Karmur.
The BJP had dropped sitting MLA of Jamnagar North Dharmendrasinh Jadeja and given ticket to Rivaba Jadeja. Clearly, Rivaba has lived up to the party’s expectations as she is on her way to register a record-breaking win on her much-talked about debut. She has also been a member of Karni Sena and was made the president of its women’s wing in 2018.
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Born in Rajkot in 1990, Rivaba joined the Bharatiya Janata Party three years ago. At the time, a photo of Rivaba and Ravindra Jadeja with Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also gone viral on social media. After joining BJP, Rivaba has remained active in Jamnagar North assembly constituency and has been fully committed to advancing women’s empowerment in the area.
Interestingly, Rivaba’s father-in-law Aniruddhsinh and sister-in-law Naynaba are in Congress. There were multiple reports of a rift within the family. Last month, Naynaba had grabbed the headlines when she said that Rivaba Jadeja’s chances of winning the Gujarat Assembly polls were low because the latter was a “celebrity” and people wanted a local leader to represent them.
When Rivaba was later asked about whether it bothered her that Naynaba was campaigning for Congress on the seat, she said everyone in her family had freedom and liberty and it was not the first time that two people of the same family were aligned with different ideologies.
“They have their own set of ideology and I have mine. We both are focusing on own paths. Matbhed ho sakta hai but manbhed nahi hona chahiye (You can differ with each other but there should be no differences among us),” she said.
On the personal life front, Rivaba tied the knot with Ravindra Jadeja in 2016. She has studied mechanical engineering from Atmiya University, Rajkot. Her father is a renowned businessman in Gujarat.
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