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Thursday, Apr 29, 2004

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National - Elections 2004

Candidate Watch

'Jyotiraditya Scindia, Congress candidate, Guna Lok Sabha seat'

Jyotiraditya Scindia became one of the youngest members of Parliament in February 2002 when he won the Guna Lok Sabha seat that had fallen vacant following the death of his father, Madhavrao Scindia, in an air crash.

The seat had been won by Madhavrao Scindia in the 1999 election by a margin of over two lakh votes. A year earlier, in 1998, Madhavrao's mother and veteran Bharatiya Janata Party leader, Vijayaraje Scindia, won from here. In that same election, Madhavrao, who contested from Gwalior, face a tough challenge from the BJP's Jaybhan Singh Pawaiya and only managed to win by a small margin of 26,000 votes. It was after this that he chose to shift to Guna when his mother withdrew from the electoral race.

As the Guna parliamentary constituency has traditionally been a Scindia bastion, Jyotiraditya became the Congress' automatic choice for the seat after his father's demise.

The junior Scindia honed his managerial skills at Harvard and Stanford before embarking on a professional career as an investment banker with international financial institutions such as Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley. He was also associated with the United Nations economic Development Cell before joining active politics.

Delivering his first speech at an election rally at Guna after his father's demise, Mr. Scindia stretched both his arms in an all-embracing gesture and addressed the people as Meri Praja (my people), to reiterate the legacy of the Scindias, the erstwhile rulers of this territory. In the 2002 byelection, Mr. Scindia, riding the crest of a sympathy wave, won by a hefty margin of more than 4.5 lakh votes. He began his political innings by asserting that he was there to finish his "illustrious" father's unfinished agenda of ensuring development and bringing prosperity to the region. This time too, Mr. Scindia is going to the voters recounting all the good work he has done for the constituency as an MP.

During a tour of the Guna area, an old villager told this correspondent that the local people owed their lives to the Scindias. He recounted how one of Mr. Scindia's illustrious forefathers, popularly known as Madhav Maharaj, had personally distributed foodgrains at a time when people were starving to death and the entire area was reeling under the impact of a severe famine.

In the current election, in spite of a pro-BJP wave that appears to be sweeping Madhya Pradesh, Mr. Scindia, pitted mainly against the BJP's Hari Vallabh and the Bahujan Samaj Party's Ramvilas, is expected to win comfortably.

- Lalit Shastri

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