By Kulsum Mustafa
Lucknow: Congress has been hit with a torpedo. Their extended family member –Jyotiraditya Scindia has snapped ties, and if this was not bad enough this young Congressman turned Sangi and joined the Bhartiya Janta Party.
A Pandora’s box has opened and different reasons are being attributed to Jyotiraditya’s leaving Congress, a party of which his father Madhavrao Scindia was a member till life and one in which he himself has spent nearly two decades. While his supporters and some Congressmen who wish not to be named said that he was used by the party and in a state where his ancestors had ruled he was sandwiched between two-party rival entities – Chief minister Kamalnath and MP and All India Congress Committee general secretary, Digvijay Singh. It suited them to let Scindia remain powerless in his home state wherein, he enjoyed clout.
This feel the BJP was chiefly responsible for Jyotiraditya feel Humilated and suffocated” and led to him leaving the party. According to the top BJP leadership in Madhya Pradesh it was internal politics that led the Scindia scion partway with the Congress and seek refuge in the party that they claim gives its members their rightful share and position.
Royalty tag
But a majority of Congressmen say that he was always very haughty and that he carried his royalty tag for everyone to see and that he was too ambitious and his claims of mass adulations were false and that he hardly enjoyed the people’s support.
“Tell me if it was really true that Scindia enjoyed mass support in his home turf why is it that despite all the luring and cajoling and big incentives only 20 Congress MLAs in MP have given their resignation,?” asked Congressman Dr Hilal Naqvi. According to Naqvi, it is Scindia’s lust for power and the over-ambitious nature that lead him to leave secular Congress and join the Hindutva BJP. Naqvi said that Jyotiraditya was never a mass leader no matter what he says but it was the Congress that gave him posts and privileges for which he has shown his thanklessness.
Naqvi’s claim
When asked his reaction as to why Gandhi family, of which Scindia has been like an extended family refused to give him an audience Naqvi said, “ Scindia had been openly indulging in anti-party activities for quite some time now, under such conditions how could it have been to talk with him,” he said.
Naqvi added that the party and the Gandhi family had always treated him well and had even given him plum ministerial posts and he should have been grateful for the special privileges he got.But it is clear that Jyotiraditya was not happy and the rebuff regarding getting MP chief minister’s chair had put him on the path of revolt. As a run-up to 2019 Lok Sabha elections when he was entrusted with the important responsibility of reviving the Congress in Uttar Pradesh and while Priyanka Gandhi was given the charge of Eastern UP to Scindia was entrusted UP West he was not happy. In fact, he saw his UP role as a diversion and treated it as Gandhi family’s smart move of removing him from the path of Kamalnath, who has been a close confidant of the Gandhi family.Jyotiraditya’s four successive victories from his constituency Guna, in Madhya Pradesh, even in 2014, when Congress fared poorly and BJP won 27 of the 29 Lok Sabha seats had raised his esteem in his own eyes. But the truth is he was not alone in bringing back laurel for the Congress, the other seat was won for the Congress by Kamalnath. But it seems all along Jyotiraditya had his eyes on his home state Madhya Pradesh wherein his family ruled. He wanted to be the chief minister and had worked very hard for it. He was crestfallen when the post went to Kamalnath and thereafter he showed his rebellious nature from time to time. This dream was not likely to be changed into reality and the dawning of truth made him kick hard at the party that had nurtured him and joining the BJP was his way of taking his revenge. He sure has hit hard. It will be very difficult for Congress to recover from this jolt.