15 months ago, on March 10, on the birth anniversary of Madhavrao Scindia, his son, Jyotiraditya Scindia dumped the Congress party, along with 22 loyalists and joined the BJP. Fast forward to the latest cabinet reshuffle, and it appears that the commitment shown by Scindia ever since then, whether it be in the Covid response or helping the BJP state unit pick up the missing pieces and reinvent itself, has finally paid rich dividends. Impressed by Scindia’s performance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday conferred him a cabinet berth.
On Wednesday evening, after much speculation, Jyotiraditya Scindia was inducted by PM in his Council of Ministers and allocated the civil aviation portfolio. In what can be termed as sheer coincidence, Madhavrao Scindia held the civil aviation and tourism portfolios in the PV Narasimha Rao government from 1991 to 1993.
While his father steered the all-important ministry through the draining liberalisation process, Scindia Jr. has a similar responsibility, if not greater, to formulate national policies and programmes for the development and regulation of the Civil Aviation sector which has been bleeding ever since the pandemic struck.
My interview shoot with Madhavrao Scindia when he left @INCIndia in 1996. 24 years later his son @JM_Scindia is doing the same.
History repeats itself and the biggest prize for a journalist is to track and tell the story. You can see young Jyotiraditya in the background. pic.twitter.com/E4vbMpCypm— Sudhir Chaudhary (@sudhirchaudhary) March 10, 2020
As reported by TFI, Jyotiraditya Scindia, after his defection from Congress to BJP proved his mettle by first bringing down the inconsequential Kamal Nath government and consequently ensuring the stability of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government by winning the majority of the seats in the by-polls.
Currently, a Rajya Sabha MP, Scindia’s elevation to the top cabinet post must be searing like a dagger in the hearts of Congress young striplings like Sachin Pilot and Milind Deora, who had nearly joined the BJP last year.
The fact that Jyotiraditya’s father, Madhavrao never rose to the political heights that he deserved is well known within India’s political circles. The primary reason was Congress and its perpetual obsession with the Gandhi clan that never allowed any other non-Gandhi dynamic leader to scale the top administrative positions.
And with Jyotiraditya Scindia stuck in Congress, it appeared that fate was playing a cruel joke when Kamalnath was served the CM post in a platter when all the hard work was done by Scindia. However, rather than waiting for inspiration to strike, Scindia took matters into his hands and engineered his own destiny.
It’s an undeniable fact that Scindia is at the peak of his career and PM Modi wants to use it for the country’s benefit. He is not an unsuccessful, incapable and a liability dynast like Rahul Gandhi. On the contrary, he is celebrated and enjoys significant popularity in the Guna region, his election constituency, something which the voters of Wayanad will never agree upon regarding Rahul. The manner in which 22 MLAs defected to the BJP along with Scindia shows the kind of political clout that he enjoys.
Scindia, however, has a tremendous task in hand. The ministry’s report showed a fall of over 13 per cent in passenger traffic this year from January to April compared to the same period last year. He has to resuscitate the sector, which is pivotal to India’s economy. However, with the faith reposed by the PM in him, one can be optimistic that Scindia will leave no stone unturned to prove his credentials.
