Back to retake Guna, Jyotiraditya Scindia hopes to put 2019’s shock loss in rearview

Out of deference to the former royal family of Gwalior, people refer to him as “Maharaj”. But Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia prefers to be referred to as the “darzi (tailor) of Guna” who built roads, schools, and railway lines for the constituency.

Guna, in the Gwalior-Chambal region, has been represented by three generations of the Scindia family in the past 37 years. Jyotiraditya himself represented the seat four times, from 2002 to 2019, as a Congress leader. But five years ago the run that started with a bypoll win in 2002 came to an end with a shock defeat at the hands of his former understudy K P Yadav, who contested on a BJP ticket.

But having moved to the ruling party in March 2020, Scindia who is again back in the fray from Guna, which votes on May 7, tells The Indian Express that he has moved past the defeat, has “no mental block”, and does not think he is “reclaiming the seat”.

“For me, the people of the Gwalior-Chambal region are my family … I may not have received their blessings (in 2019) and need to address what the failings were, I will go back to them for their blessings,” says the Union Minister, for whom the entire clan, including wife Priyadarshini Raje, has hit the streets to canvass.

While BJP leaders across India are campaigning on the platform of “double engine sarkar”, in his campaign speeches Scindia has added one more “engine”. In the village of Mahu Alampur, he tells a gathering, “There will be another double-engine sarkar (at the Centre). I am here to ask you to make it a triple-engine sarkar (in Guna). At the Centre, (PM Narendra) Modi ji, in the state (Chief Minister) Mohan Yadavji, and in Guna and Ashok Nagar, aapke parivar ka mukhiya (head of your family).”

The “triple-engine sarkar”