Jyotiraditya Scindia

Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia (born 1 January 1971) is an Indian politician. He belongs to the House of Scindia that once ruled in Gwalior and a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha representing the State of Madhya Pradesh. He is a former Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha, representing the Guna constituency in Madhya Pradesh until his defeat in the 2019 Indian general election. He is a former member of the Indian National Congress (INC) and presently a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Jyotiraditya Scindia
Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha
Assumed office
20 June 2020
Preceded bySatyanarayan Jatiya
ConstituencyMadhya Pradesh
Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha
In office
24 February 2002 – 23 May 2019
Preceded byMadhavrao Scindia
Succeeded byDr. K. P. Yadav
ConstituencyGuna
Minister of State (Independent charge) for Power
In office
28 October 2012 – 26 May 2014
Prime MinisterManmohan Singh
Preceded byVeerappa Moily
Succeeded byPiyush Goyal
Personal details
Born (1971-01-01) 1 January 1971
Bombay, Maharashtra, India
Political partyBharatiya Janata Party
(2020–present)
Other political
affiliations		Indian National Congress
(2001–2020)
Spouse(s)
​
​
(m. 1994)​
Children2
FatherMadhavrao Scindia
Relatives
ResidenceJai Vilas Palace, Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India
New Delhi, India
Alma materHarvard University (B.A.)
Stanford University (M.B.A.)

While a member of the INC, Scindia was a Minister of State with independent charge for Power in the cabinet of prime minister Manmohan Singh from October 2012 until May 2014. In March 2020, he severed all ties with Congress and joined BJP.

Early life and education

Scindia was born on 1 January 1971 in Bombay to Madhavrao Scindia and Madhavi Raje Scindia. He claims to belong to the Kurmi caste.[1][2] He was educated at Campion School, Mumbai and at The Doon School, Dehradun.[3]

Scindia was admitted to St. Stephen's College, Delhi, University of Delhi. He later transferred to Harvard College, the undergraduate liberal arts college of Harvard University, where he graduated with BA degree in Economics in 1993. In 2001, he received a Master of Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.[4][5]

Scindia is a grandson of Jivajirao Scindia, the last Maharaja of the princely state of Gwalior, who, although joining the Dominion of India in 1947, was allowed his former titles and privileges, including an annual remuneration called the privy purse. Upon his death in 1961, his son, Madhavrao Scindia (Jyotiraditya's father) became titular Maharajah of Gwalior, as the 26th amendment[6] to the Constitution of India promulgated in 1971, the Government of India abolished all official symbols of princely India, including titles, privileges, and privy purses.[7]

Scindia's mother, Madhavi Raje Scindia (Kiran Rajya Lakshmi Devi), was great-granddaughter of the Prime Minister of Nepal and Maharaja of Kaski and Lamjung, Juddha Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana, a patrilineal descendant of Ramakrishna Kunwar of Gorkha. He is married to Priyadarshini Raje Scindia (nee Gaekwad) of the Gaekwad family of Baroda. His grandmother, Vijayraje Scindia, was among the BJP's founder members.[8] He has a son and a daughter.

Political career

Early political career

On 30 September 2001, the Guna constituency fell vacant due to the death of Scindia's father the sitting MP Madhavrao Scindia in an airplane crash in Uttar Pradesh.[9] On 18 December, he formally joined the INC and pledged to uphold the "secular, liberal and social justice values" of his father.[10]

On 24 February, Scindia won the by-election in Guna, defeating his nearest rival, Desh Raj Singh Yadav of the BJP, by a margin of approximately 450,000 votes.[11] He was re-elected in May 2004,[12] and was introduced to the Union Council of Ministers in 2007 as Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology. He was then re-elected in 2009 for a third consecutive term and became Minister of State for Commerce and Industry.[13]

Scindia in 2008 as Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology

Scindia was appointed Minister of State for Power in November 2012 in a cabinet reshuffle which drafted a number of younger politicians into the Indian cabinet, including two other scions of princely families, R. P. N. Singh and Jitendra Singh.[14]

Scindia was among the richest ministers in the UPA government with assets nearly Rs. 25 crore ($5 million) including investments in Indian and foreign securities worth over ₹16 crore (US$2 million) and jewellery worth over ₹5.7 crore (US$799,140).[15] In 2010, he filed a legal claim to be the sole inheritor of the property belonging to his late father worth ₹20,000 crore (US$3 billion), however this was challenged in court by his aunts.[16]

Scindia was tasked by the Indian Planning Commission with preventing a repetition of the July 2012 India blackout, the largest power outage in history, which affected over 620 million people, about 9% of the world population,[17][18][19] In May 2013, Scindia claimed that checks and balances had been put in place to prevent any recurrence of grid collapse and that India would have the world's largest integrated grid by January 2014.[20]

In 2014, Scindia was elected from Guna[21] but lost that seat to Krishna Pal Singh Yadav in 2019.[22]

Bharatiya Janata Party

Citing disgruntlement with the INC leadership, he quit the party on 10 March 2020 to join the BJP. The party then released a statement claiming that he had been expelled for "anti-party activities". He later joined the BJP on 11 March 2020.[23][24] Other MLAs loyal to him also resigned from the INC and their MLA posts in a political crisis that led to the resignation of Kamal Nath as Chief Minister.

On 19 June 2020, Scindia was elected a BJP Rajya Sabha MP from Madhya Pradesh.[25]

Other roles

Scindia is chairman of the regional Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association (MPCA) in India.[26] After the spot fixing scandal in the Indian Premier League exploded in the media and Sanjay Jagdale, a member of the MPCA resigned from his job as secretary from the Board of Control for Cricket in India, Scindia spoke out against corruption in Indian cricket.[27]

The Scindia School of which Jyotiraditya is President of the Board of Governors.

Scindia is President of the Board of Governors of Scindia School, Gwalior, which was founded by his great-grandfather, Madho Rao Scindia, in 1897.[28][29]

Daly College, Indore, of which Scindia is a hereditary patron.

He is also a hereditary patron of Daly College, Indore, which was established in 1882 to educate the children of the royalty, nobility and aristocracy of Central Indian princely states.[30]

Scindia is chairman of Madhav Institute of Technology and Science one of the most prominent Engineering College of Gwalior Chambal Region which was founded in 1957. [31]

Ancestry

[32]

Jyotiraditya Scindia
Born: 1 January 1971
Preceded by
Jivaji Rao Scindia		 — TITULAR —
Maharaja of Gwalior
2001-
Reason for succession failure:
Monarchy abolished in 1948, and title, privileges, and privy purses abolished in 1971

See also

References
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  2. "Diggy-Jyoti feud may have roots in history". The Sunday Guardian Live. 14 March 2020. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  3. "The evolution of Honorable Shri. Jyotiraditya Scindia". Times of India. 2 June 2002. Retrieved 21 June 2009.
  4. "Honorable Shri. Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia - Minister of State for Commerce & Industry". Department of Commerce, Government of India. Archived from the original on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
  5. "Jyotiraditya M. Scindia - Minister of State for Commerce & Industry". Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Government of India. Archived from the original on 22 March 2011. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
  6. "The Constitution (26 Amendment) Act, 1971", indiacode.nic.in, Government of India, 1971, retrieved 9 November 2011
  7. 1. Ramusack, Barbara N. (2004). The Indian princes and their states. Cambridge University Press. p. 278. ISBN 978-0-521-26727-4. Retrieved 6 November 2011., "Through a constitutional amendment passed in 1971, Indira Gandhi stripped the princes of the titles, privy purses and regal privileges which her father's government had granted." (p 278). 2. Naipaul, V. S. (8 April 2003), India: A Wounded Civilization, Random House Digital, Inc., pp. 37–, ISBN 978-1-4000-3075-0, retrieved 6 November 2011 Quote: "The princes of India – their number and variety reflecting to a large extent the chaos that had come to the country with the break up of the Mughal empire – had lost real power in the British time. Through generations of idle servitude they had grown to specialize only in style. A bogus, extinguishable glamour: in 1947, with Independence, they had lost their state, and Mrs. Gandhi in 1971 had, without much public outcry, abolished their privy purses and titles." (pp 37–38). 3. Schmidt, Karl J. (1995), An atlas and survey of South Asian history, M.E. Sharpe, p. 78, ISBN 978-1-56324-334-9, retrieved 6 November 2011 Quote: "Although the Indian states were alternately requested or forced into union with either India or Pakistan, the real death of princely India came when the Twenty-sixth Amendment Act (1971) abolished the princes' titles, privileges, and privy purses." (page 78). 4. Breckenridge, Carol Appadurai (1995), Consuming modernity: public culture in a South Asian world, U of Minnesota Press, pp. 84–, ISBN 978-0-8166-2306-8, retrieved 6 November 2011 Quote: "The third stage in the political evolution of the princes from rulers to citizens occurred in 1971, when the constitution ceased to recognize them as princes and their privy purses, titles, and special privileges were abolished." (page 84). 5. Guha, Ramachandra (5 August 2008), India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy, HarperCollins, pp. 441–, ISBN 978-0-06-095858-9, retrieved 6 November 2011 Quote: "Her success at the polls emboldened Mrs. Gandhi to act decisively against the princes. Through 1971, the two sides tried and failed to find a settlement. The princes were willing to forgo their privy purses, but hoped at least to save their titles. But with her overwhelming majority in Parliament, the prime minister had no need to compromise. On 2 December she introduced a bill to amend the constitution and abolish all princely privileges. It was passed in the Lok Sabha by 381 votes to six, and in the Rajya Sabha by 167 votes to seven. In her own speech, the prime minister invited 'the princes to join the elite of the modern age, the elite which earns respect by its talent, energy and contribution to human progress, all of which can only be done when we work together as equals without regarding anybody as of special status.' " (page 441). 6. Cheesman, David (1997). Landlord power and rural indebtedness in colonial Sind, 1865-1901. London: Routledge. pp. 10–. ISBN 978-0-7007-0470-5. Retrieved 6 November 2011. Quote: "The Indian princes survived the British Raj by only a few years. The Indian republic stripped them of their powers and then their titles." (page 10). 7. Merriam-Webster, Inc (1997), Merriam-Webster's geographical dictionary, Merriam-Webster, pp. 520–, ISBN 978-0-87779-546-9, retrieved 6 November 2011 Quote: "Indian States: "Various (formerly) semi-independent areas in India ruled by native princes .... Under British rule ... administered by residents assisted by political agents. Titles and remaining privileges of princes abolished by Indian government 1971." (page 520). 8. Ward, Philip (September 1989), Northern India, Rajasthan, Agra, Delhi: a travel guide, Pelican Publishing, pp. 91–, ISBN 978-0-88289-753-0, retrieved 6 November 2011 Quote: "A monarchy is only as good as the reigning monarch: thus it is with the princely states. Once they seemed immutable, invincible. In 1971 they were "derecognized," their privileges, privy purses and titles all abolished at a stroke" (page 91)
  8. "Jyotiraditya Scindia Joins BJP, Says Congress No Longer The Party It Was". NDTV.com. Retrieved 11 March 2020.
  9. "Madhavrao Scindia Dies In Plane Crash". Outlook. 30 September 2001. Retrieved 14 February 2019.
  10. Prasad, K.V. (18 December 2001). "Like father, like son". The Hindu. Retrieved 14 February 2019.
  11. "Jyotiraditya Scindia wins Guna by 4.5 lakh votes". Rediff.com. 24 February 2002. Retrieved 14 February 2019.
  12. "Jyotiraditya Scindia wins Guna by 4.5 lakh votes". India Today.com. 24 May 2004. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  13. "Jyotiraditya Scindia became Minister of State for Commerce and Industry". business.standard.com. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  14. Hartosh Singh Baal (5 November 2012). "The Princelings of India". International Herald Tribune.
  15. "Patel, Scindia among richest ministers in India". Rediff Business. 10 September 2010.
  16. Ambreesh Mishra (13 November 2010). "Scindia Feud: Castles in the heir". India Today Magazine.
  17. Helen Pidd (31 July 2012). "India blackouts leave 700 million without power". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  18. "India's Mass Power Failure Worst Ever in World History". Outlook. Press Trust of India. 1 August 2012. Archived from the original on 1 August 2012. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
  19. Sanjay Datta (20 November 2012). "Grid safety tops Montek Singh Ahluwalia's wish list for Jyotiraditya Scindia".
  20. Anupama Airy (13 May 2013). "India's power grid set to be world's largest". Hindustan Times. Archived from the original on 18 June 2013.
  21. "Jyotiraditya Scindia wins Guna seat". Economic Times. 16 May 2014.
  22. "Guna Election Results 2019 Live Updates: Krishna Pal Singh of BJP Wins". News18. 23 May 2019. Retrieved 14 September 2019.
  23. "Stung by Scindia resignation congress claims it expelled guna royal for anti party activities". News18. 10 March 2020.
  24. Deepak Upadhyay (10 March 2020). "Jyotiraditya Scindia resigns from congress". Live Mint.
  25. "Jyotiraditya Scindia, Digvijaya Singh among 19 elected to Rajya Sabha". The Hindu. 19 June 2020.
  26. "MPCA, Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association, Indore | Cricket in Madhya Pradesh | Cricket | Indore | MPCA | CK Naidu | Holkar Cricket | Holkar Stadium". Mpcaonline.com. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
  27. "Scindia calls for time-frame to complete spot-fixing enquiry". Z-News, India. 24 June 2013.
  28. Amit Roy (1 January 2006). "Public schools in India woo British Asian pupils". The Telegraph.
  29. "The Scindia School: Fees and Funding". 2013. Archived from the original on 1 November 2013.
  30. "Patrons". Daly college. Retrieved 9 September 2019.
  31. "Chairman". MITS Gwalior. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
  32. JBR, PurushottamShamsher (1990). Shree Teen Haruko Tathya Britanta (in Nepali). Bhotahity, Kathmandu: Vidarthi Pustak Bhandar. ISBN 99933-39-91-1.
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