After 13 years, Scindia to visit Chhindwara

Senior BJP leader and Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia is scheduled to visit Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh, considered Congress veteran Kamal Nath’s bastion, on August 28.

This would be Scindia’s first visit to Chhindwara in the last 13 years. The development is attached with significance since it comes in the wake of Scindia exiting from Congress following his rivalry with Nath leading to the fall of the latter’s government in Madhya Pradesh in March, 2020.

The last time Scindia visited Chhindwara was in 2008 when he shared dais with Nath and former chief minister Digvijay Singh while launching Congress campaign for Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh.

“Scindia is coming on a day’s visit to MP on August 18. He is scheduled to visit Chhindwara, Rajgarh and Guna on the day. The party is finalising his programmes”, BJP state secretary Rajneesh Agrawal said.

Nath held Chhindwara parliamentary constituency for 39 years till 2019 when he vacated the seat for his son Nakul Nath in the last Lok Sabha elections.

Scindia who was the face of Congress in the 2018 Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh was upset over the party leadership’s decision to dump him and choose Nath as chief minister after Congress returned to power in the state.

Scindia’s demand for the post of Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president in the state was also overlooked by the party leadership, leading him to raise a banner of revolt against Nath in February, 2020.

He asked his loyalists in Congress Legislature Party including a dozen ministers to resign from the Assembly as well as the party triggering the fall of the 15month-old Kamal Nath government in March, 2020.

Scindia as well his loyalists later joined BJP. Scindia’s loyalists always blamed Nath for his gradual marginalisation in Congress, ‘leaving him no option but to quit Congress’.