‘Meri soch Congressiyon ki nahi hai’: Scindia visits Gwalior ahead of MP polls
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Union civil aviation minister and turncoat Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jyotiraditya Scindia on Wednesday visited Gwalior in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh to meet party workers and discuss the upcoming assembly elections. Assewmbly election to the 230 member constituency in Madhya Pradesh will take place on 17 November, and the counting of votes will take place on 3 December.
At Gwalior, Scindia told reporters, “Meri soch Congressiyon ki nahi hai, meri soch hai ki humein apne kaam mein dhyaan dena chahiye…” ( My thoughts are not like Congress, my thoughts are that we should concentrate on our work)
The statement is akin to him quitting the Congress leading to the downfall of the Kamal Nath government.
The polls are a litmus test for Scindia, the scion of the erstwhile Gwalior kingdom, whose defection to the BJP brought it to power in 2020 but has led to some bad blood between his loyalists who followed him to the party and the old guards.
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Scindia’s visit to Gwalior comes as BJP faces headwinds in the Chambal-Gwalior region. The BJP’s big push to change its fortunes in the region, which had spurned it in the last Madhya Pradesh assembly polls, seems to be facing some headwinds as regional factors take precedence and the Congress‘ pitch for change challenges the ruling party’s narrative woven around the planks of development and welfarism.
Across several constituencies of the Chambal-Gwalior region, Prime Minister Narendra Modi largely draws unreserved praise for his stewardship of the country but many of the same voters also talk of the need for “badlav” (change) in the state, offering mixed views on the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led government and voicing a litany of complaints.
Issues like price rise, unemployment, bureaucratic apathy, corruption and stray cattle are listed by a cross-section of voters in their criticism of the government.
The name ‘Scindia‘ enjoys a certain currency in this belt but has also its share of critics.
Several voters are of the view that the BJP may make some gains in the region if he is also fielded in the assembly polls, as it will give rise to the view that the party is considering him as a chief ministerial candidate.
Scindia was seen as a major factor in the Congress’ big win in the region in 2018 and the BJP will hope that the presence of the ‘maharaj’ in its ranks will make turn things around during the November 17 polls.
With the polls, however, still a month away, there remains a substantial chunk of voters who are muted about their preferences in Morena and Gwalior districts, part of the Chambal-Gwalior region which account for 34 seats in the 230-member state assembly.
The Congress had swept the region in 2018, winning 27 of its constituencies.
Morena and Gwalior districts together account for 12 assembly seats, and the Congress had won 11 of them in the 2018 assembly polls. However, the ruling party’s tally rose to three following the 2020 bypolls in the state after 25 MLAs, most of them loyal to the then Congress leader and current Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, resigned and joined the BJP.
(With agency inputs)
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Updated: 18 Oct 2023, 02:34 PM IST
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