“ONLY THE PEOPLE CAN JUDGE ME”

I may look young but my soul is old,” says newly minted BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia to a 3,000-strong crowd that has assembled on a sunny late October morning in Dholagarh, a mofussil 85 km from Gwalior, to see and hear his campaign for the Madhya Pradesh by-elections.

- Kaushik Deka in Gwalior

This is Scindia’s way of telling them that despite his royal background, sophisticated demeanor and foreign education, he is one among them—rooted in “Indian culture”.

“I do not need to travel in an AC car. I’ve been taught how to work hard and survive on one onion, like many of you in the villages,” he says. The crowd cheers with a roar of claps.

That’s an unusual and exaggerated display of austerity from Scindia whose declared assets are estimated to be nearly Rs 380 crore. The ‘young look’ of the 49-year-old Rajya Sabha MP, too, is not accidental as is evident from the expensive Whoop fitness strap on his right wrist. But then, the November 3 by-elections to the 28 assembly seats aren’t usual either. For Scindia, these elections are not just about ensuring a majority in the assembly for the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government. The results on November 10 will also reflect the public’s verdict on his decision to switch from the Congress to the BJP in March this year.

In the Congress, Scindia had been miffed about being overlooked for chief ministership when the party won 114 seats in the 230-member assembly in 2018 and assumed power. The wins in 26 of the 34 seats in the Gwalior-Chambal region, where Scindia is perceived to be the undisputed leader, had contributed significantly to the victory. When Scindia parted ways with the Congress on March, 22 Congress MLAs loyal to him resigned from the assembly, bringing down the Kamal Nath government. Three other Congress MLAs resigned later and another three seats fell vacant from the death of incumbent legislators.