Ravindra Jadeja’s Sister, Father Join Congress, Wife joins BJP

Elder sister of Indian cricketer Ravindra Jadeja, Naina Jadeja joined Congress during an election campaign of the party's Lok Sabha candidate Mulu Kondariya in Jamnagar. Her father Anirudhsinh Jadeja and Congress leader Hardik Patel were present in the event when Naina made the alliance.

This comes in the wake of Jadeja’s wife Riva Solanki aka Rivaba joining BJP last month on Sunday, March, 3 in Jamnagar, a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the city. While Naina takes up the position of in-charge of the NWP’s western zone (Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan), Rivaba heads the Karni Sena Women’s Wing in Gujarat. It is still unclear whether any of the two will contest the 2019 Lok Sabha election or not.

“My first goal would be to empower women to the level that they can fend for themselves, take care of themselves and defend themselves when men are not around and fight off any threats from perverted minds. This is my prime goal as I have personally been through such an experience,” Rivaba told the media after she became the head of the women’s wing of Karni Sena in Gujarat. She was referring to the incident when a police constable allegedly slapped her after her car hit his motorcycle in Jamnagar last year.

She remained silent about joining electoral politics then and had said, “I can’t say anything with certainty at this stage. I would like to make contribution in the capacity for which my community has selected me. You may call this a beginning. I have lots of good plans for our community and our country in coming days. Presently, my focus is social service.”

Last month she made her plans clear that she does want to join politics.

Naina told the reporters that “she will be campaigning for Congress as the BJP has not been able to work for farmers. The promises made were not materialised,” after she joined the party. She worked as a nurse for several years before quitting the job to manage the restaurant that her brother started called “Jaddu’s Food Field” in Rajkot. She became a nurse in a government hospital in Jamnagar to financially help her family when her mother died in 2005.

My first goal would be to empower women to the level that they can fend for themselves, take care of themselves and defend themselves when men are not around and fight off any threats from perverted minds.

The woman who played a key role in shaping her brother’s cricketing career spoke about the restaurant in an interview with Rediff in 2014 and said, “It has a cricketing theme and the restaurant has become very popular. I am on a two-year sabbatical from the hospital pursuing a degree in nursing. We are planning to expand the restaurant on Diwali.”

Apart from Naina, her father Anirudhsinh has also joined Congress and will be contesting from Jamnagar. Gujarat goes to poll on April 23 and the results of the voting will be revealed on May 23.

Picture credit- TV9 Bharatvarsh

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