[9][10] He 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.

When I came to Vadnagar to live with his family, he told me "Why did you come to your in-laws' house when you are still so young, you must instead focus on pursuing your studies."

So I too stopped going there after a point and I went back to my father's house.Jashodaben said that she spent a total of about three months with her husband during a three-year period before their final separation.

[19] Darshan Desai, a reporter for The Indian Express, located Jashodaben in May 2002, but she and others in her village had refused to speak to him and he was told to leave the town.

[15] When required to fill out forms on which his spouse was requested to be identified, Modi had repeatedly been leaving the spousal information section blank or just marked with a dash – including in state assembly elections in 2001, 2002, 2007 and 2012.

[19][21][14] In the 2014 Indian general election, Modi contested the Vadodara seat in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament of India.

[1] Under the Representation of the People Act and following recent rulings stating that a complete response was mandatory, Modi was required to declare any previous marriage.

[14] Following legal advice to "come clean" about the issue, for the first time in public and media, Modi acknowledged that he had a wife.

[19] Before Modi officially acknowledged his marriage, a group of activists and security professionals visited Jashodaben at her home.

[3] To contest the election, Modi's political opponents criticised his evasions of facts about his marriage on official documents.

Nishant Varma, a citizen of Ahmedabad, sought criminal charges against 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.

[22] 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.

[23] The estrangement of Jashodaben and Modi has been discussed in the context of a broader trend in India that politicians may have more success if they are known for not having ties to a spouse.

[24] The RSS, which gives Modi political support, values celibacy in its senior leadership[24] but contrarian tones have been noted.

[32] Event organizers reported that the conference was shut down on the second day of the week-long program on the direction of the BJP leader Amit Shah and others.

As she was unable to produce a marriage certificate or a joint affidavit from her husband, the application was rejected by the regional passport office as "incomplete".

[37][38] Various media organizations in India reported the RTI in different ways, including emphasizing Jashodaben's fear, the financial implications of her complaint, the guards' demands to be treated as guests, or the case as an example of female independence.

[34] Jashodaben 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.

[5] She also 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.

"[39] In response to the RTI request, commentator on women's issues Shobhaa De called Jashodaben a "superhero" and "plucky", and said that her actions were "bold, blunt, and to the point".