Jashodaben Narendrabhai Modi is a retired Indian school teacher.
28 Facts About Jashodaben Modi
1.
2.
Jashodaben Modi is the estranged wife of Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India.
3.
Jashodaben Modi did not acknowledge the marriage publicly until he was legally required to do so prior to the 2014 Indian general elections to the Lok Sabha.
4.
Jashodaben Modi's mother died when she was two years old.
5.
Narendra Modi and Jashodaben had an arranged marriage, starting with a family-arranged betrothal in their very early childhood.
6.
Jashodaben Modi had made plans to go to Ahmedabad to work at his uncle's canteen.
7.
At his mother's insistence, Jashodaben Modi came to the family household to maintain their marriage, but her husband objected to the arrangement, insisting on continuing his life on his own terms and encouraging her to continue in her studies.
8.
Jashodaben Modi never spoke to me about the RSS or about his political leanings.
9.
Jashodaben Modi used to spend a lot of time in RSS shakhas.
10.
Jashodaben Modi said that she spent a total of about three months with her husband during a three-year period before their final separation.
11.
Jashodaben Modi continued with her professional life, receiving a Secondary School Certificate in 1972 or 1974, completing teacher's training in 1976 and becoming a teacher in 1978.
12.
Jashodaben Modi is retired and her pension is 14,000 per month.
13.
Rumours had long been circulating that Jashodaben Modi was actually married.
14.
In 1992, Jashodaben refused to be interviewed by the newspaper Abhiyan when that publication presented a story on the marriage of her and Modi.
15.
Jashodaben Modi himself did not quite deny that she was his wife, although he did not explicitly acknowledge it either.
16.
Jashodaben Modi was reportedly diligent and well liked as a teacher, especially among her students.
17.
Under the Representation of the People Act and following recent rulings stating that a complete response was mandatory, Jashodaben Modi was required to declare any previous marriage.
18.
Jashodaben Modi said that the marriage was never consummated, and that Modi left it soon after it was solemnized.
19.
Nishant Varma, a citizen of Ahmedabad, sought criminal charges against Jashodaben Modi for having failed to acknowledge his legal wife and forge previous election documents as against prescribed rules of the Representation of the People Act.
20.
In summer 2014, Congress party politician Ajay Rai filed a lawsuit to be heard by the Allahabad High Court complaining, among other things, that Modi did not give the permanent account number of Jashodaben.
21.
In June 2014, at what has been described as "her first public event", Jashodaben Modi attended the public funeral of politician Gopinath Munde.
22.
In June 2015, Jashodaben was scheduled to speak at a conference on politics organized by supporters of Modi.
23.
In November 2015, Jashodaben Modi applied for a passport in order to visit relatives and friends overseas.
24.
In November 2014, Jashodaben Modi filed a Right to Information Act request seeking details about her security and rights as the spouse of the prime minister.
25.
Jashodaben Modi has said that her security guards have refused to show any identification or to say on whose orders they have been assigned to her, and have suggested she refrain from talking with the media.
26.
Jashodaben Modi's family has complained that her guards do not carry any identity cards, refuse to identify themselves, and refuse to name the person or office supervising them.
27.
In May 2015, Jashodaben Modi filed a third request for the information about the security detail and their orders.
28.
Jashodaben Modi complained that she had completed the forms using her legal name, "Jashodaben Narendrabhai Modi", but the government office replied to her using her maiden name.