Guna, Madhya Pradesh:

Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, the BJP’s candidate from Madhya Pradesh’s Guna for the Lok Sabha elections, on Thursday said that he is ‘spider’ of the constituency as he has created a vast network of roads there.

Scindia, while addressing a gathering of the Rawat community in Guna’s Shivpuri, also asked people to ensure the BJP gets 370 votes extra in every booth when compared to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls so that Narendra Modi is elected as prime minister for a third term.

“Twenty years ago when I resolved to walk on the path of dedication, I decided that if no one would solve your problems, Jyotiraditya Scindia would… I am the spider of Shivpuri. I have built a network of roads here, a network of substations, a network of irrigation facilities, and a network of progress and development for the people here…” he said.

“To make Narendra Modi PM for the third time, we have to work on increasing (BJP) votes by 370 in each booth,” he said.

The minister further said that under the PM’s leadership, several welfare schemes were underway for farmers, women, youth and the poor, including giving free rations to 80 crore people and the Ayushman Bharat health initiative.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given the slogan of ‘abki baar 400 paar’. Under his leadership, Article 370 has been abrogated in Jammu and Kashmir. Dr Syama Prasad Mukherjee (Jan Sangh’s founder) sacrificed his life for removal of Article 370. The PM is working to make India a developed nation by 2047,” he said.

The Congress is pitting former BJP leader Rao Yadvendra Singh Yadav against Jyotiraditya Scindia. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Scindia, then a Congress candidate, had lost to K P Yadav. Scindia’s defeat from his own turf by 1.25 lakh votes set in motion a series of events, including an internal party struggle, eventually resulting in Scindia’s exit from the party in 2020. He took 22 MLAs with him, causing the collapse of the Congress government led by Kamal Nath that had come to power in 2018. The BJP brought Scindia into Parliament via the Rajya Sabha and made him a Union minister.

The BJP has named candidates for all 29 seats in the state. The Congress is yet to announce names for Gwalior, Khandwa and Morena seats.

Scindia has begun campaigning in the seat, which votes on May 7, before he was even officially declared the BJP candidate and has been attending important events of different communities.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Guna:

Union minister and BJP candidate from Guna Lok Sabha constituency Jyotiraditya Scindia on Saturday called tribals the custodians of “jal, jungle and jameen” and had lunch with a family from the community in Madhya Pradesh.

Addressing forest dwellers in Guna’s Bamori assembly segment, with an estimated 30 per cent tribal population, he said the BJP-ruled Centre will spend Rs 25,000 crore for the development of 12,665 tribal villages in the country.

“In the country and the world, if some people truly conserve Mother Earth, it is the tribal society. It has been conserving ‘jal, jungle and jameen’ (water, forest and land) for thousands of years. Indigenous people are the custodians of jal, jungle and jameeen,” he said.

“Had the world followed the lifestyle and conservation of natural resources from indigenous people, climate change would not have taken place,” he said.

Later, Scindia had lunch at a tribal woman’s home, where he relished “dal-baati”.

#WATCH | Madhya Pradesh: Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia had lunch with locals, during the upcoming Lok Sabha elections campaign, in Guna earlier today. pic.twitter.com/wPR1gJJa6B

— ANI (@ANI) March 23, 2024

One of the hot Lok Sabha seats in MP, Guna will vote on May 7.

Scindia (53), had lost from Guna in 2019 as a Congress candidate to BJP’s KP Yadav by over 1.21 lakh votes. Before that, he had represented the constituency since 2002.

Guna was represented six times by his grandmother and BJP stalwart Vijaya Raje Scindia and four times by his father and Congress leader Madhavrao Scindia.

It is speculated that the Congress might pit former Union minister Arun Yadav against Scindia keeping in mind the population of Yadav voters, estimated to be 2 lakh, in the constituency.

Congress leaders have said they will go all out to defeat Scindia, whose defection to the BJP along with his loyalist MLAs in March 2020 had sunk the Kamal Nath government in the state.

“We are going to ensure that Scindia loses the election at any cost. He will come under our fierce political attack. He is our number one political enemy like the BJP ideology which is bent upon dividing society,” MP Congress media cell chief KK Mishra had told PTI earlier.

In the 2019 general elections, the BJP had won 28 of 29 Lok Sabha seats in MP.

The polls in Madhya Pradesh are scheduled to be held in four phases, between April 19 and May 13.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)