Bhopal: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday called Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia a ‘committed leader for development’ as he urged the voters to elect him to the Lok Sabha from Guna in Madhya Pradesh.
Addressing a public rally in Guna, Shah said he will decide the future of incumbent BJP MP KP Yadav’ after the elections are over and sought public support for Scindia.
“What KP Yadav’s role will be in the party, leave all that to me. Your leaders – Jyotiraditya Scindia and KP Yadav — will continue to work for you. Elect Scindia as a Lok Sabha MP, he is a committed leader for development,” Shah said.
Scindia, who had contested the last Lok Sabha election on a Congress ticket in 2019, had lost to the BJP’s KP Yadav. The first-ever defeat of a member of the erstwhile royal Scindia family of the Gwalior dynasty in its bastion Guna was a major setback for Scindia.
He joined the BJP in 2020 and was made a Rajya Sabha MP and elevated to Civil Aviation Minister in the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP government.
While addressing the rally, Amit Shah said that people want their leader to be big. “Your leader is already big, support him and send him to the Lok Sabha. Your support to him (Scindia) means support to PM Modi,” Shah said.
Jyotiraditya Scindia has represented the Guna seat four times between 2002 and 2014, including a by-poll in 2001.
The Union minister’s grandmother, Vijayaraje, contested her first poll from the seat in 1957 on a Congress ticket and won.
Vijayaraje, also called ‘Rajmata’, contested as the Swatantra Party nominee in 1967 and then from the BJP in 1989.
Jyotiraditya’s father Madhavrao contested his first poll from Guna on a Bharatiya Jan Sangh ticket in 1971 and fought his last poll in 1999 as the Congress nominee.
The Congress has fielded Rao Yadvendra Singh Yadav, a former BJP leader, against Scindia in Guna.
–IANS