As soon as Jyotiraditya Scindia was welcomed by JP Nadda into BJP, Scindia’s name is among the two candidates named by the BJP for the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh. The announcement followed moments after the 49-year-old four-time Lok Sabha MP joined the BJP.
“Congress is no longer what it used to be, it is living in denial,” Mr Scindia said after his induction into the BJP, wearing the party’s saffron silk scarf. He also heaped praise on PM Modi, saying no other government had ever won the kind of mandate he did, not once, but twice.
Jyotiraditya Scindia, once among Rahul Gandhi’s closest aides, joined the BJP today, ending his 18-year association with the Congress, the party of his father.
He will be one of the two BJP Rajya Sabha candidates from Madhya Pradesh. His exit along with 21 Madhya Pradesh MLAs endangers the Congress in a major state where it had come to power just 15 months ago. On Tuesday, as Holi was celebrated across the country, Jyotiraditya Scindia drove his SUV to Home Minister Amit Shah’s home, from where the two together went to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home. Immediately after the meeting, he tweeted his resignation letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, talking about a “fresh start”.
One of the reasons for his switch was said to be the promise of a Rajya Sabha nomination by the BJP, something that had proved to be a tough task for him in the Congress.
