Jyotiraditya Scindia joins BJP, awarded Rajya Sabha ticket

The BJP rolled out the red carpet for Jyotiraditya Scindia on Wednesday, awarding him a Rajya Sabha seat within hours of joining the party even as the Congress rushed to cushion the aftershocks of the party stalwart’s desertion along with 22 loyal MLAs.

On his part, Scindia declared that the “future of the country is safe at the hands of Prime Minister Narendra Modi” and that the “Congress is living in denial”.

His friend and former Congress President, Rahul Gandhi, who is being pilloried for not preventing the departure of Scindia, a powerful campaigner and popular leader, finally responded to the charge saying that “he was the only one who could walk into my house any time... He was with me in college.”

On his Twitter account, Gandhi tweeted an earlier photograph of himself with Scindia and Kamal Nath, who sided with Digvijaya Singh to deny a sure Rajya Sabha seat to Scindia.

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time,” Gandhi quoted Leo Tolstoy by way of a caption in his photograph with Scindia and the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, whose government has been shaken by the desertion of 22 Congress MLAs with the scion of erstwhile Gwalior royal family.

Scindia blamed the State government and the party leadership in Madhya Pradesh for not fulfilling the promises made to the people 18 months ago during the elections.

“Transfer industry is flourishing in Madhya Pradesh where we had a dream after coming to power. Eighteen months on, that dream lies shattered, whether it was about waiving farmers’ loans or compensating farmers for the crop damaged due to natural reasons. Hundreds of farmers continue to face various court cases in Mandsaur,” he said addressing reporters at the BJP headquarters here on Wednesday.

BJP President JP Nadda welcomed him formally into the party and said it was a home-coming for Scindia.

“I recall her role in spreading the ideology of Bharatiya Jana Sangh and later the BJP. For us, she was a visionary and an ideal,” Nadda said remembering the role of Scindia’s grandmother, Vijaya Raje Scindia, in establishing the BJP and its ideology.

Along with Scindia, the BJP has given party’s Rajya Sabha tickets to former chief whip of the Congress in Upper House Bhuvaneshwar Kalita from Assam. Vivek Thakur, son of veteran leader CP Thakur, got a Rajya Sabha ticket from Bihar.

COMMENT NOW