Kandhal Jadeja first won from Kutiyana in 2012 as an NCP candidate
For Kandhal Jadeja, the Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate from Kutiyana seat in Porbandar district and son of the late mafia don Santokben Sarmanbhai Jadeja, said that his name was sufficient to win the Gujarat Assembly elections.
Jadeja, who recently quit Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), after the party denied him the ticket and hopped on to the bicycle of the Samajwadi Party stated that the NCP was "finished in Gujarat."
The 1999 film "Godmother" starring Shabana Azmi is based on the life of Santokben Sarmanbhai Jadeja. The 'Lady Don' was an MLA from Porbandar's Kutiana seat from 1990 to 1995.
According to police records, she had more than 500 criminal cases filed against her in addition to the murder of 14 murderers of her husband, Sarman Munja Jadeja.
After Santokben, her son Kandhal Jadeja is carrying forward his mother's political legacy. It doesn't matter to Kandhal Jadeja whether he is fighting as part of a political party or as an independent because according to him he will win because people vote for his work.
Jadeja first won from Kutiyana in 2012 as an NCP candidate, when the party had a poll alliance with the Congress. He won again in 2017 on the NCP ticket. This time there is no alliance between the NCP and the Congress.
Jadeja's equation with the NCP has been strained since August 2017, when he backed BJP candidates in the Rajya Sabha elections. He repeated the same in the Rajya Sabha elections in 2020, ignoring the NCP's warnings. Because of the displeasure of NCP, he decided to contest from SP.
Speaking to ANI, the SP candidate said, "My mother, father and uncle all were MLAs from Kutiyana and used to work for the poor. They worked for all the communities of the society."
When asked if people will vote for him out of fear or love, given his family background, Jadeja said, "If you had you asked me this in '80s-'90s, I would have said - out of fear. There was a ballot paper then. Now there is EVM. People vote for me due to my work. Everyone here knows me as I have spent my entire life here and here I have a big family. This is my mother's village."
He further said that all political parties are campaigning for the election but the public will to decide who should win.
"In 2012, I fought the election for the first time and at that time people voted for me. I won by 16000 seats in 2012, in 2017 I won by 25000 seats and now I will win by 40000 seats Samajwadi Party and BJP are rivals in Uttar Pradesh and the situation in Gujarat is different, if people elect me from here, I will have to work, I can't go to Uttar Pradesh," said the SP candidate.
"There is still a lot of development work left. No work was done here in the last 50 years here, now I am doing it for 10 years. A lot of work is still left. If I want to get the work done or do it, then the government which is there and the work will have to be taken from that only," said Jadeja.
When he was asked why he left NCP and chose Samajwadi Party when SP has no vote bank in Gujrat, Jadeja said, "When I brought NCP here in 2012, nobody knew about it. Here my voters who are my family don't see the party they vote for me. I get a vote in my name. I resigned from the party last week, and everybody followed and resigned. NCP is finished in Gujarat. I have now hopped on a bicycle," said the SP candidate from Kutiyana.
He further said that he resigned from NCP because the party asked him to vote for Congress in the Rajya Sabha elections but he voted for BJP.
"This time I am riding a bicycle because I voted for the BJP in the Rajya Sabha elections. I voted for the BJP for the development works of my area. I voted for BJP because they did development work in my area. I again voted BJP in the Rajya Sabha elections. NCP was saying that vote for Congress, but the idea got separated and this is the reason that I left NCP and have brought the cycle that I have now. My relation with the cycle is old, my uncle fought in Samajwadi Party in 1995, we have an old identity, so this time I have brought the cycle," he added.
The state of Gujarat which has 182 assembly constituencies will go for polling in two phases on December 1 and 5. The counting of votes will take place on December 8.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)