Jyotiraditya Scindia, Union minister for civil aviation, was leading from Madhya Pradesh’s Guna in the Lok Sabha election, the results of which are being announced on Tuesday.
Early results showed that Scindia’s closest rival for the seat was Congress party’s Rao Yadvendra Singh. This is Scindia’s fourth electoral bid from the constituency.
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In 2019, Scindia, aged 53, had contested the polls from Guna on a Congress ticket but lost to BJP’s Krishna Pal Singh with a vote margin of 10.65%. The constituency has been a stronghold of the Scindia family, represented by his grandmother Vijaya Raje Scindia, popularly known as the Rajmata of Gwalior, for four consecutive terms from 1989 to 1998 as a BJP member.
The Union minister’s father represented the seat in the Lok Sabha as a Congress member for four terms from 1971 to 1980. He last won the election in 1999 and passed away on September 30, 2001.
As the seat fell vacant, Jyotiraditya Scindia officially joined the Congress party and made his electoral debut from the seat in February 2002. He won the by-election and defeated BJP’s Desh Singh Yadav.
He was re-elected from the constituency in 2004, 2009, and 2014. During his tenure, he held key positions in the government, serving as Union minister of state for telecommunications, commerce and industry, and power with independent charge.
However, in 2020, he revolted against the Congress and joined the BJP along with his 22 loyalist MLAs in Madhya Pradesh, which resulted in the BJP assuming control of the state government.
In the 2018 Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, the Congress party had come to power with Kamal Nath as the chief minister, but it could run the state only for fifteen months.
After Scindia’s switch, the BJP sent him to the upper house (Rajya Sabha) of Parliament and handed over the charge of the civil aviation ministry to him, which was once held by his father.