Cricketer Ravindra Jadeja Joins BJP, Wife Shares Photo

Having retired from T20 internationals after India's T20 World Cup triumph this year, cricketer Ravindra Jadeja appears to have embarked on a political journey by joining the BJP. The announcement was made by the cricketer's wife, Rivaba Jadeja, who is a BJP MLA from Gujarat. 

In a post on X on Thursday, Ms Jadeja shared photos of Ravindra Jadeja's card as a BJP member, along with her own. The post mentioned the BJP's 'sadasyata abhiyan', or membership drive, which began on September 2. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also renewed his membership of the party under the drive the same day. 

Rivaba Jadeja joined the BJP in 2019 and contested the Gujarat Assembly polls from the Jamnagar North constituency in 2022. Ravindra Jadeja had also campaigned for his wife and she had won from the constituency by a margin of over 50,000 votes. 

Ravindra Jadeja's father and sister had campaigned for the Congress at the time and Ms Jadeja had said that was not an issue. On whether there were any ideological conflicts between her and her cricketer husband, she had said, "He and I are not two people, we are one. Our thinking is one and  we have the same ideology. We complement each other. There is no confusion in this. We are very sure about what to do in life and what not to do. There is no confusion in the family. It is only a matter of ideology."

Mega Drive

BJP National General Secretary Vinod Tawde said on Thursday that over 1 crore people had joined the party in three days since the membership drive began. 

"There is tremendous enthusiasm among the countrymen and workers about this campaign. The number of members is certainly going to reach record levels in the coming days," he posted in Hindi on X.

Party veterans Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi also renewed their membership on Thursday.