Political temperatures are at peak in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah – the big two of the ruling BJP – planning two visits each to the state within two months.
Besides the back-to-back visits of the top BJP leaders even during the non-election time - hinting at the importance placed on the 2023 state Assembly polls - another thing that intrigues political watchers is the proximity shown by both Modi and Shah to Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia.
Scindia is considered a key peg in the electoral game plan of the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, and ever since his entry into the saffron-fold in 2020 that heralded reinstating of the party’s government in the state, he is being looked upon as one of the strongest potential successors to chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
There are also speculations that if Scindia contests the Lok Sabha polls of 2024, he may opt for Gwalior instead of his earlier constituency Guna where he lost in 2019.
In these contexts, the attitude of Modi and Shah vis-à-vis Scindia is eliciting a lot of interest.
Scindia was active during both visits of Modi - all in three weeks. The PM was in the state on September 17 to reintroduce Cheetahs at Kuno national park and in Ujjain on October 11 to inaugurate the Mahakal Lok project.
While Scindia was seen taking care of logistics at the Gwalior airport during the arrival of Cheetahs from Namibia, he was also present at the PM’s event with women's self-help groups (SHGs) in Shivpuri.
More importantly, Scindia was among the three personalities, including governor Mangubhai Patel and CM Chouhan, who entered the Mahakaleshwar temple with PM Modi when he offered prayers before inaugurating the Mahakal Lok projects. Governors of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and union ministers from Madhya Pradesh, including Narendra Tomar, Prahlad Singh Patel, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Virendra Khatik, participated in the inauguration event but did not make it inside the temple with the PM.
Now, with Shah scheduled to make his second visit in two months on October 16, Scindia will again be in focus. Shah is scheduled to perform the groundbreaking ceremony of the new airport terminal building at Gwalior after releasing Hindi MBBS books in the capital Bhopal earlier in the day. The home minister will also address a public meeting at Mela Ground in Gwalior and participate in programmes related to the PM Housing Scheme and Nal-Jal (drinking water supply) scheme.
However, the most interesting part of the union home minister’s itinerary for the day is his visit to the Jaivilas Palace – the ancestral dwelling of the Scindias in Gwalior. This will be the first visit of a BJP top leader to the Scindia home. Shah will be at Jaivilas Palace for about one-and-a-half hours and have refreshments there before returning to Delhi at 7.00 pm.
Despite being Scindia’s home, Gwalior had been mainly a stronghold of the BJP for the last many decades when Jyotiraditya and his father Madhavrao were prominent leaders of the Congress. BJP won a maximum of the Assembly seats in the district and always held the post of mayor of Gwalior. However, in the 2020 bypolls after Scindia joined BJP with 22 MLAs, Congress managed to retain the Dabra seat in the district, and in the recent civic polls, the party managed to capture the Gwalior mayor seat after 57 years.
This has made the political situation very interesting in Gwalior and Scindia being one of the key players in the region, his moves are being watched closely by Congress as well as BJP leaders.
