Gujarat Assembly Election 2022: Isudan Gadhvi to be AAP's CM face

New Delhi, Nov 04: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal on Friday announced that Isudan Gadhvi will be Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) chief ministerial candidate for the next month's Gujarat Assembly elections.

The announcement was made by Kejriwal who said the 40-year-old Gadhvi got as many as 73 per cent votes in a poll conducted by the party.

Gadhvi was pitted against state party unit chief Gopal Italia, who played a key role in the Patidar community agitation. He hails from a farmers' family in Dwarka district's Pipaliya village and belongs to the other backward castes, which account for 48 per cent of the state's population.

Kejriwal said the party conducted the poll by asking people to call a phone number and listen to a recorded message which asked them to choose their chief ministerial face.

Last week, Kejriwal had urged people to contact the party through SMS, WhatsApp, voice mail and e-mail to give their views about who should be the CM candidate from the party in the state, which is currently being ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Elections to the 182-member Gujarat Assembly will be held in two phases next month - on December 1 and 5, while votes will be counted on December 8.