Jyotiradiya Scindia and Digvijaya Singh may face-off in Madhya Pradesh’s Guna Lok Sabha constituency in 2024. Such a contest will have implications for the Gwalior-Chambal region in the crucial 2023 Assembly elections prior to the 2024 General Elections.
Speculation has been rife in the past few days with Mr. Singh, a former Chief Minister, upping the ante against Union Civil Aviation Minister Mr. Scindia of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Both are currently Rajya Sabha members and hail from the Gwalior-Chambal region.
At a press conference in Seoni on Tuesday, Mr. Singh said that he was ready to contest against Mr. Scindia from Guna, where the latter has won four times before losing in 2019 to one-time protege-turned-opponent K.P. Yadav.
“I will do anything the party orders me to,” Mr. Singh said. He went on to add that he was a Rajya Sabha member and presently, there was no need for him to contest the General Elections. “But I am a soldier of the party and would do whatever the party directs me to do,” he said, also adding that his Lok Sabha constituency was Rajgarh but he had (unsuccessfully) stood in the 2019 elections from Bhopal because the party wanted him to do it.
Mr. Singh is currently touring 66 Assembly segments identified as vulnerable by the Madhya Pradesh Congress on the basis of multiple electoral losses in the past. Seoni, where he made the above statement, is one such constituency. A Congress MLA said that during these tours, Mr. Singh met party workers down to the booth level, and elected representatives in local self bodies, explaining to them the importance of improving coordination for the Assembly polls, while also identifying dissenters and addressing their concerns.
Earlier, on May 13, too, he took a jibe at Mr. Scindia while discussing a favourable (till then) trend in the Karnataka Assembly polls with journalists. He said there had been no “Mr. Scindia” in Karnataka for “Operation Lotus”. Ten days ago, Mr. Singh tweeted that Mr. Scindia was leading one of the three factions in the Madhya Pradesh BJP.
While the Lok Sabha elections are further away and there has been no formal announcement of Mr. Scindia contesting from his family bastion, such statements send a wider message, political commentator Prabhu Pateria believes.
“Despite Mr. Yadav being the sitting MP, whenever Mr. Scindia comes to Gwalior-Guna, he spends a major chunk of his time in his erstwhile constituency, which is an indication in itself, and the Congress wants to convey that it is ready for the challenge,” Mr. Pateria said.
He added that since Mr. Scindia had been the Congress’ main face in the Gwalior-Chambal prior to his exit, Mr. Singh finds that an aggressive posturing will be more suitable for taking up the mantle.
“Mr. Scindia took much of the second rung of the Congress leadership from the region with him [22 MLAs had switched sides with the Union Minister in 2020 to pave the way for the BJP’s return in Vallabh Bhawan]. It is likely that by making such statements, Mr. Singh wants to assure party workers that he will lead the big fight ahead, and convey they should not fear any leader, their stature notwithstanding,” Mr. Pateria said.
BJP spokesperson Pankaj Chaturvedi, however, has a different take on the issue. “Mr. Singh has himself said that wherever he goes for campaigning, his party loses. How can he talk about contesting and winning elections? He is making this statement to stay in news and will repeatedly make such statements as the campaign [for the 2023 Assembly polls] picks up,” Mr. Chaturvedi said.
