From Congress culture to BJP ‘maryada’: New lessons for Jyotiraditya Scindia

In a list of 30-star campaigners for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly bypolls, Jyotiraditya Scindia only makes a belated entry at No.10

‘Shrimant’ Jyotiraditya Scindia, the head of the erstwhile Gwalior royal family, and newly-minted BJP leader is having to learn how the party hierarchy works at the age of 49. In the BJP, which he joined just as the Covid-19 pandemic was gaining ground in March this year, the Scindia name does not automatically spell prominence the way it used to in the Congress. At least not yet.

So, in a list of 30-star campaigners for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly bypolls, Scindia only makes a belated entry at No. 10. Not just that, on election campaign vans, or ‘raths’ as the BJP calls them, there are photos of Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan, state BJP chief V D Sharma, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President J P Nadda. But Scindia’s face is conspicuously missing—an embarrassing fact that his former party has gleefully turned into a campaign issue.

Clearly, gone are the days when Scindia could be spoken of as one of Madhya Pradesh’s biggest leaders, along with his rivals in the Congress, Kamal Nath and Digvijay Singh. Ever since his crossover, Scindia has been doing the rounds of BJP offices in Bhopal and elsewhere in the districts of the Gwalior-Chambal region, where assembly by-elections are due. But by all indications, he is being sanguine about it.

Much rides for him personally on the outcome of the 28 bypolls scheduled for November 3. Elections are being held in areas where he is considered an unquestioned satrap and where his supporters won a bulk of the seats in the 2018 Assembly polls. Now he has to make sure that they repeat the feat.

Scindia’s exit, along with 22 MLAs loyal to him, sent shockwaves through the Congress. It plunged the Kamal Nath government into crisis and brought the three-term BJP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan back to power. The whole development was carefully plotted by the BJP.

Now the BJP needs to win at least nine seats to ensure it continues to rule the state. For Congress, it is a tall task to make this election count in more than a symbolic way since it has to win all the seats to topple the Chouhan government. That said, it’s no walkover for the BJP either. Having decided to field 25 turncoats as its candidates, it has earned the wrath of the old cadre.

For Scindia, it goes beyond mere win and loss. There is personal and family pride at stake. Congress leaders have been hurling abuses at him calling him ‘gaddar’, ‘be-imaan’ and ‘Shri-ant’ as opposed to the ‘Shrimant’, as he is referred to in the Gwalior region.

In the Congress party, he was seen as part of the Gandhi family coterie, given his proximity to Rahul Gandhi. In the BJP, he is banking on his own family name to emerge as a serious contender in the state.

Scindia’s switch has brought the entire Gwalior royal family into the BJP camp. CM Chouhan hailed this development while paying tributes to the late Vijayaraje Scindia—a key patron of the RSS, Jana Sangh and the BJP—on her birth centenary recently. A united Scindia clan under the BJP umbrella has seen the Congress launch sharp attacks on the erstwhile royals, which was unthinkable in the past.

Congress leaders have not failed to visit the memorial of Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi in Gwalior and to recall the proximity of the Scindia dynasty to the British. The Congress has even described the rebel MLAs now in the BJP camp as ‘Jaichands’, after the 12th-century Rajput ruler who is known to have betrayed Prithviraj Chauhan.

Jyotiraditya Scindia has been considered a frontrunner for a seat in the Modi government since he walked into the BJP. But he will know that the long road to Delhi passes through Gwalior-Chambal.