Recently there has been a lot of speculation regarding the fate of Jyotiraditya Scindia who recently switched over from the Congress to the BJP. Now that the Rajya Sabha elections have been announced for mid-June, he will get the coveted seat this entire drama was all about. We have also been led to believe that part of this switch-over package was a cabinet ministership in Modi’s cabinet. That is what has got the rumour bill abuzz. Was this part of the promise? Will the PM reward Scindia? Some former Congressmen like Himanta Biswa Sarma who has arguably played a key role in delivering the Northeast to the BJP have not yet been included in the cabinet or made state CM, though he remains the party’s most important face in the Northeast. Others like Rao Inderjit Singh who also joined the BJP from the Congress in 2014 was given a ministership soon after, Rita Bahuguna Joshi too is a minister in the Yogi government. Also while Scindia — with the BJP’s power of persuasion at its disposal — managed to get as many as 24 MLAs to defect (22 from his region, the Gwalior Chambal belt), will he be able to secure their re-election
Kamal Nath, who has been camping in Bhopal during the entire lockdown, has already got three of these to return to the Congress. One of the three is Balendu Shukla, who was known to be close to late Madhavrao Scindia. While all the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government needs is 10 of these to win for his government to survive, Scindia needs to deliver a larger chunk to prove to his new party that he is a vote-winning machine. That is the only asset Narendra Modi and Amit Shah value. But clearly there seems to be some hiccup on the path to Scindia’s ministership. While his supporters would like to see him in an economic ministry, the ministry of finance may not be on the cards for a newcomer. Especially if Scindia is keen on a cabinet berth over a Minister of State status. However, there are indications that he will be accommodated in some other ministry.
Meanwhile political analysts have been debating as to whether Scindia made a smart move in jumping ship or not. There are arguments on both sides but one thing is certain — he won’t have the same easy access to Modi and Shah as he did with the Gandhis. Equally, from Scindia’s perspective, he may not have seen a return to Parliament as quickly if he had stuck around with the Congress for it was clear that his old party was not going to give him a Rajya Sabha seat anytime soon.
The question remains, will he be as important in his new party as he was in the Congress. For unlike Priyanka Chaturvedi, who joined the Shiv Sena and has carved a niche for herself in a very short time, the BJP is a much larger set up. And one that is fast going the Congress way when it comes to a centralised high command.
