Fourth generation Scindia rises on the horizon

New Delhi/Gwalior: The politics of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are incomplete without the mention of the Scindia family.

People are now speculating that the fourth generation of the Scindias is going to enter the political arena after the 26th birthday of Mahanaaryaman Scindia, son of civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, was celebrated with much fanfare in Gwalior. The young Scindia has been educated in Doon School and has a MBA degree from Yale University in the US.

Mahanaaryaman has been active on Twitter and has been putting out his political views since his father left the Congress and supporting him in his new innings in the BJP. Mahanaaryaman will be the fourth generation Scindia to take the plunge into politics starting from his grandmother Vijaya Raje Scindia, who was fondly called Rajmata and was one of the founding figures of the BJP. Rajmata started her political career in the Congress, later switched to the Swatantra Party and then the Jan Sangh and its later avatar, the BJP.

Mahanaaryaman when asked about his plans to enter politics said, “First I will meet people, talk to them and then decide about politics.”

But close family well wisher Keshav Pande said that it is for the Scindia family to decide about his entry into politics but without them the politics of the two states are incomplete.

Rajmata’s three children also entered politics with Vasundhara Raje being Chief Minister of Rajasthan twice and also a Union Minister while her sister Yasodhara Raje is active in Madhya Pradesh politics and is one of the senior leaders of the BJP. Mahanaaryaman’s grandfather late Madhavrao Scindia was a Union Minister and also founded his own party, the Madhya Pradesh Congress, when differences arose with former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao. He merged the party with the Congress when Sonia Gandhi took over. He was a close confidante of Sonia Gandhi but his untimely demise in an air crash brought Jyotiraditya Scindia into politics.

Both Jyotiraditya Scindia and Dushyant Singh, son of Vasundhara Raje, are the third generation politicians in the Scindia family. Jyotiraditya started his career in the Congress and was Union Minister of power in the Manmohan Singh government. He switched to the BJP when differences arose with former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath and is now Union Minister of Civil Aviation in the Modi government. His cousin Dushyant Singh is the MP from Jhalawar in Rajasthan.

When Jyotiraditya Scindia left the Congress his son’s tweet said it all: “I am proud that my father took a stand for himself and its difficult to resign from legacy, history speaks itself and ur family is not hungry for power, we will bring change in MP and India which will be our future.” – IANS