These Rajya Sabha polls in Madhya Pradesh were not the usual ones, as it saw 2 former Maharajas, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Digvijaya Singh enter Rajya Sabha.
BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia and congress's Digvijaya Singh both are descendants of erstwhile royal families of Gwalior and Raghogarh respectively. Both the royal families did not share friendly relations in history. The rivalry remained unchanged as Jyotiraditya Scindia's father the late Madhavrao Scindia never shared a good bond with Digvijaya Singh. And when the young Scindia entered the politics of MP, he also did not get along with Digvijaya Singh and both of them continued to be each other's arch-rivals even when they were in the same party. Thus, it is believed that Digvijaya Singh kept no stones unturned to side-line Scindia from MP's politics by using his clout. After facing months of negligence from the MP congress, Scindia then joined BJP in March 2020.
When Scindia left congress, many people claimed that he left because he was denied ticket for the Rajya Sabha by the party leadership. If one considers this as a fact, Scindia, by defecting, indeed achieved his target of getting elected to the upper house today.
This time both Jyotiraditya Scindia and Digvijaya Singh looked set to sail through Rajya Sabha Election easily. However, the political stakes for the duo were very high, as the upper house poles gave them a chance to revive their politics in MP after losing in general elections 2019.
The upper house battle was indeed safe for both of them considering the numbers of BJP and INC in MP. In the 230-member Assembly of MP whose effective strength is 206, candidates needed 52 votes each needed for the victory.
BJP had 107 MLAs of its own in MP and enjoyed the support of two MLAs of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), one MLA of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and two Independents. Whereas the congress asked 54 of its 92 MLAs to cast their first preference vote for Digvijaya.
Thus, now when the results came, both Scindia and Singh sailed it through easily.
Although Scindia has come out victorious today, if one goes back in time, Scindia in congress was facing a huge existential crisis due to challenges from Kamalnath and Digvijaya Singh factions.
Realising the aspirations of Scindia to take over the seat of CM in MP, it was of utmost importance for Kamal Nath to safeguard his place. And for Digvijaya Singh it was more than just saving his political career, as he also had the task of instating his son Jaivardhan Singh in the state. Thus, the old giants of MP congress got united and skilfully sidelined Scindia in the state politics.
For Scindia, winning the upper house polls from INC with the support of his small faction fighting against the giants like Kamalnath and Digvijaya Singh was not possible. After realising his limitations in congress, the Gwaliar’s Maharaja followed a long Hindutva lineage to join BJP.
Digvijaya Singh, after the defection of Scindia alleged that Scindia left the congress because he wanted to become a Union minister once again. Now, it will be interesting to see whether BJP appoints Scindia as a minister or not.
