With BJP, Ram, and nationalism, Scindia family looks to regain lost fortress

“Scindia, oh Scindia dil se; sochna ab kya hai, chunein Modi phir se.” Roughly translated, the lyrics say: “Scindia, from the heart; what’s there to think about, let’s choose Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again.” Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and his supporters dance to the song after he finishes his address at Athai Kheda village in Madhya Pradesh’s Guna Lok Sabha constituency. 

More than four years after he made the switch from the Congress, Mr. Scindia is contesting his first Lok Sabha election with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and hopes to reclaim his family’s lost bastion of Guna. 

Family bastion

Mr. Scindia’s grandmother Vijayaraje Scindia first won the Guna seat in 1957 on a Congress ticket. She later joined the Bharatiya Jan Sangh and eventually, the BJP. She went on to represent the constituency for five more terms, including once with the Swatantra Party in 1967 and then four consecutive terms with the BJP between 1989 and 1998 with the BJP. 

Her son — and Mr. Scindia’s father — Madhavrao Scindia first won from here in 1971 with the Bharatiya Jan Sangh but later joined the Congress. He also represented Guna for four terms. Mr. Scindia himself was a Congress MP from Guna for four terms, starting from the 2002 bypolls following his father’s death. 

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Though their parties kept changing, and mother and son remained political rivals, the constituency remained in the family since 1989 until the BJP defeated Mr. Scindia in 2019. Fielding a former Scindia family loyalist K.P. Yadav, the BJP leveraged its social engineering and Mr. Modi’s popularity to beat the scion of Gwalior’s erstwhile royal family. 

Reversed strategies

The Guna Lok Sabha constituency, which will vote in the third phase on May 7, consists of eight Assembly seats spread across three districts — Guna, Ashok Nagar, and Shivpuri. The BJP had won six of them in the 2023 Assembly election, with Mr. Scindia running an extensive campaign for the party.

This time, the BJP dropped its sitting MP Mr. K.P. Yadav and fielded Mr. Scindia, who had joined the party in March 2020 as he led a rebel group of Congress 22 MLAs to bring down the Kamal Nath-led M.P. government. The Congress, in a replication of the BJP’s 2019 strategy, has fielded Rao Yadvendra Singh Yadav, hoping to consolidate the influential Yadav community against Mr. Scindia. Mr. Yadav, whose father was a BJP MLA, had moved to the Opposition party just ahead of the 2023 Assembly election.

Interestingly, Mr. Yadav’s father, Rao Deshraj Singh Yadav, has also unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha polls from Guna, once losing to Madhavrao Scindia in 1999 and then again losing to the younger Mr. Scindia in 2002. However, the political affiliations of the two families were reversed back then. 

Personal connect

Riding on the back of the BJP and Mr. Modi’s popularity, the Scindia family does not want to leave anything to chance this time. Apart from the Union Minister, his wife Priyadarshini Raje Scindia and their 27-year-old son Mahanaaryaman Scindia are also visiting several villages as part of the campaign, reigniting the family’s connect with the people. 

While their supporters refer to Mr. Scindia and his son as ‘Maharaj’ and ‘Yuvraj’ respectively, the father-son duo term them part of their family.

“People of this area have always given their love to the Scindia family. Today, I met some people who worked with my grandmother. Now for them, I am the third generation [of the family]. It is now my desire that I get their blessings and take forward the Scindia family’s tradition of public service and development,” Mr. Scindia said, as he addressed the gathering in Athai Kheda, which lies in the Ashok Nagar district.  

Claiming a blood bond with the people, he says that the Scindia family has always stood with them in hard times. “I am your shield as well as your sword,” he tells the crowd, reminding them that he had arranged an Indian Air Force aircraft to bring oxygen from Ranchi to Guna during the COVID-19 pandemic at a time when he himself was in hospital.

The crowd begins chanting “Shrimant Maharaj ki Jai (victory to the king)”.

Development, nationalism, and Ram

Mr. Scindia makes a slew of promises, from ensuring a network of rail lines and roads to bringing Kendriya Vidyalayas to the region to speaking with State Chief Minister Mohan Yadav to get compensation for farmers whose crops were damaged in the recent hailstorms. 

“I have not come empty-handed like the Congress. I have come amongst you with my track record and history,” he says, as he takes on his former party.

While keeping the local issues and his family’s personal connect at the centre of his outreach, a significant part of Mr. Scindia’s speeches also focus on the Modi-led Union government’s flagship schemes for free ration and rural housing, as well as the BJP’s core issues such as the Ayodhya Ram Temple and nationalism.

“The Congress government that only indulged in corruption and appeasement, the government that raised questions about the Indian Armed Forces, the government that said that Lord Ram is imaginary, the Congress that said that Sanatan Dharma should be destroyed — we have to tie that Congress party in a sack and throw it in the Sindh river,” he says.

“Lord Ram had been waiting for 500 years, living under a tent. The Prime Minister consecrated Ram Lalla and established him in Ayodhya. Will you give your support to Modi ji?” he says, terming the May 7 election a “sangraam (war)”. 

Cadre and data driven

Mr. Scindia’s son, speaking with The Hindu after addressing a nukkad sabha in Shivpuri district’s Badera village, differentiates between the BJP and Congress strategies, saying that a BJP candidate has the full strength of its cadre behind him.

“The Congress doesn’t seem to be a data-driven organisation, while the BJP completely functions on feedback bottom up. It is very rooted to the ground,” says Mr. Mahanaaryaman Scindia, as he clarifies that he does not have plans to enter politics anytime soon. 

When asked what went wrong in 2019, he says that it was Mr. Modi’s works and popularity that had drawn the voters. “There was a huge shift in the way people voted last time. They were voting more for the Prime Minister than the individual candidate,” he says. 

Yadavs hold the key

The campaigning from both sides is at its peak, and apart from the Scindia family’s hold on the region, caste equations also play a key role in Guna. 

The Yadav community, which has a voting population of over 2.5 lakh, had backed the BJP’s Mr. K.P. Yadav last time, and the Congress candidate will be hoping for a similar consolidation this time. Apart from the Yadavs, other OBC groups such as the Lodhis and Kushwahas are also present in significant numbers. 

After the OBCs, it is the Dalits who form the largest voting population followed by the Kshatriya Raghuvanshi community and the tribals living in some pockets of the constituency. 

The contest for political influence between the Yadavs and the other communities is also apparent in many villages, which could see a division of votes along these lines. 

A roadside vendor in Athai Kheda is quite vocal about various poll issues, but goes silent as the discussion moves towards caste equations. “Let’s not talk any further. The atmosphere in the village is not right,” he says, requesting anonymity. 

Jaypal Yadav, who runs a tea and snack shop in Mungaoli, says that the community is “angry with the BJP for denying ticket to K.P. Yadav”.

“We had voted for the BJP because of the candidate being from our community. People do not like Scindia ji for his royal credentials and even more now after he switched sides,” he says. 

Mr. K.P. Yadav has also been keeping a distance from Guna and is more actively campaigning in other Lok Sabha constituencies. However, the State CM Mr. Mohan Yadav has campaigned in the region to attract the Yadav community’s support.

Mr. Scindia is working to bring other communities in his favour. He also convinced former CM and prominent Lodhi leader Uma Bharti, who has not been active in this election, to campaign for him.

Having turned into a prestige battle for the erstwhile royal family of Gwalior, the outcome of the Guna contest will also decide Mr. Scindia’s political stature in the BJP and who will hold sway over the crucial Gwalior-Chambal region of the State.