New Delhi: Cricketer Ravindra Jadeja on Thursday (November 10, 2022) thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah after his wife Rivaba was named as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate for the upcoming Gujarat Assembly polls. Taking to his official Twitter account, Jadeja congratulated Rivaba on getting the BJP ticket and said that he is "so proud of all the effort and hardwork which you have put in". 


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"My best wishes to you, may you continue to work for the development of the society," Jadeja, who missed out on the ongoing T20 World Cup in Australia due to a knee injury, wrote for his wife.


"I also wish to thank our honourable PM Shri Narendra Modi Ji and Shri Amit Shah Ji for believing in her abilities and giving her opportunity to do noble work," he added.



Rivaba Jadeja, who is a mechanical engineer by education, has been fielded from Jamnagar North.


On the BJP giving a ticket to Rivaba, its state unit president CR Patil said that she has been "actively working" for the party.


"Rivaba has been actively working for the party in that constituency and all tickets have been given on the basis of winnability," he said.


Earlier in the day, the BJP released its first list of 160 candidates for the two-phase elections to the 182-member Gujarat Assembly, fielding Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel from his constituency Ghatlodia and dropping a large number of sitting MLAs.


Hardik Patel, the face of Patidar agitation in the 2017 assembly polls who later quit the Congress to join the BJP, also figured on the list. Patel will contest from Viramgam.


Releasing the list, Union minister Bhupendra Yadav said the BJP has changed as many as 38 sitting members, claiming that most replacements have been made with the consent of the incumbents.


The party named its candidates for 84 of the 89 seats which will go to the polls in the first phase on December 1 and 76 of 93 candidates going to the polls in the second phase on December 5.


Union ministers Yadav and Mansukh Mandaviya were joined by Gujarat BJP president CR Patil at a press conference here as Yadav named the candidates selected by the party's Central Election Committee at its meeting on Wednesday.


Yadav said the list includes 69 sitting MLAs besides 14 women, and 13 and 24 members from the Schedules Castes and Schedules Tribes respectively.


He said a number of senior leaders from the state, including former chief minister Vijay Rupani and former deputy chief minister Nitin Patel, have opted out of the contest and had written to the party leadership to this effect.


Patil expressed confidence that the BJP will break its previous record of seat tally and vote share in these polls.


Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other CEC members, including Union ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh besides party's national president J P Nadda, were in the meeting to finalise the candidates.


The BJP is hopeful of maintaining its uninterrupted winning streak in the state assembly polls since 1995.


The entry of the Aam Aadmi Party has added an extra dimension to the state's traditional bipolar elections, with the BJP's main challenger Congress hit by a fresh round of desertion by its leaders as it works to regroup.

(With agency inputs)