Guna-Gwalior BJP leaders ‘not happy’ over Scindia joining party

Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 11

Not everyone in the Bharatiya Janata Party is ecstatic with former Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia joining the saffron party.

The BJP leaders from Scindia's bastion, the Guna-Gwalior-Chambal ‘sambhag’ (region), are worried they will have to “sacrifice” their political ambitions to accommodate Scindia’s men (the 22 MLAs believed to be supporting him).

“What about our cadres and leaders who have been with the BJP through thick and thin,” said a BJP leader, who aspires to get a nomination from an area represented by one of the 22 MLAs. 

Political strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor’s latest tweet also stressed on the futility of Jyotiraditya joining the BJP. 

“Amazing that those who usually find fault with Gandhis leading Congress because of their surname are finding a Scindia leaving INC as a big jolt for the party!

“Fact is but for his surname even JM Scindia has little to show as a mass leader, political organiser or administrator,” Kishor tweeted today. 

Interestingly, in the past, BJP had criticised Jyotiraditya’s dynastic roots, who, they alleged, “betrayed” Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi during the revolt of 1857. While references are largely drawn from a poem, anecdotes and Kangana Ranaut’s ‘Manikarnika’, there is no historical proof of this “betrayal”.

Jyotiraditya is related to the Scindia family but so was his grandmother, Rajmata Vijaya Raje Scindia, the doyen of the BJP and the erstwhile Jana Sangh, and aunts Vasundhara Raje and Yashodhara Raje—both BJP leaders.