New Delhi: The last day of the Madhya Pradesh election campaigning ended with a war of words between friends-turned-rivals Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Jyotiraditya Scindia over the former Congressman’s hand in engineering the fall of the Kamal Nath-led government in 2020.
In her sharpest attack on Scindia by far, Priyanka on Wednesday called the BJP leader a “betrayer” and a “backstabber” and added that he was only following the “family tradition”.
The salvo appeared to be an indirect reference to how Jyotiraditya’s grandmother Vijayaraje Scindia had brought down the D.P. Mishra-led Congress government in Madhya Pradesh in 1967 by engineering defections in the Congress.
Scindia hit back on X, formerly Twitter, calling Priyanka a “part-time leader” who should “look in the mirror” before launching a broadside against the Nehru-Gandhi family.
“Who, leave aside protecting India from China, even gifted Indian land to them? The second generation of which family had imposed Emergency in the greed for power? And even today, the present generation of which family is defaming the country by going to foreign forums? Before teaching a lesson to ego that weighs ability with height, please take a look in the mirror yourself,” he said in what appeared to be an attack on the entire Gandhi family — from Jawaharlal Nehru to Indira and Rahul Gandhi.
The latest exchange is the sharpest since Scindia quit the Congress in 2020. Until then, he was seen in the Congress as virtually No 2 after the Gandhi family. Priyanka as the Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh and Scindia as in-charge of western Uttar Pradesh had often campaigned together in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
At Datia in Madhya Pradesh home minister Narottam Mishra’s turf, Priyanka said that Scindia might be short in height but his “arrogance” was “waah bhai waah”. People in UP were not used to addressing someone as Maharaj. Party workers complained that their work was not done because they could not call Scindia Maharaj, Priyanka said, adding that he had backstabbed the people by bringing down their elected government.
“Before teaching a lesson.. that weighs ability with height, please take a look at yourself in the mirror. The Scindia family has repeatedly replaced the rule of corrupt people and promise-breakers, and once again the people of Madhya Pradesh are going to wipe you out,” Scindia responded on X.
The BJP leader added that he did not expect her as a part-time leader to ‘have the ability to understand the difference between these two traditions–the sons of which family sacrificed their lives to protect Mother India from the Afghans, the Mughals and the Britishers–and those who gave Indian land as a gift to China’.
In 2018, the Congress had emerged as the single largest party and Kamal Nath was named the Madhya Pradesh chief minister. Scindia, who was also an aspirant for the top post, defected to the BJP with 20 MLAs two years later, resulting in the fall of the Congress government in the state. The BJP then formed its government.
With Scindia joining the BJP in 2020, many say he aspires to become the chief minister. Though the Rajya Sabha MP has been claiming that he doesn’t nurture any such aspiration and just wants to work for the people of Madhya Pradesh.
So far, Rahul and Priyanka had refrained from commenting directly on Scindia. The Union Minister, too, made veiled attacks but had never named the Gandhis.
The Madhya Pradesh election campaigning has been a turnaround with Scindia being aggressive in targeting the policies of the Gandhis. “He (Scindia) has been targeting the Gandhis for quite some time now. There’s always a limit to everything and finally Priyanka ji has reacted. He did betray the people of Madhya Pradesh and she’s only stated the facts,” said a senior Congress functionary.
Without naming Rahul, in September, Scindia had accused the Congress leader of not fulfilling the party’s poll promise of waiving off farmers loan despite promising. A month earlier during the Parliament session, Scindia had hit out at Rahul for his remarks that the Prime Minister does not consider Manipur a part of India. “Seeing (regions of) India as different parts is your thought process, not ours,” he said, without naming Rahul.
In the first week of November, Scindia had targeted Rahul at an election rally in his stronghold Guna, saying that the ‘Mohabbat ka dukaan’ is full of hatred.
“This (Congress) is a govt of lies and loot. He (Rahul Gandhi) says he has ‘Mohabbat ka dukaan’ but there are only things of hatred in that ‘Mohabbat ka dukaan’…on one side there is BJP’s double engine govt and on the other side there is a govt without an engine,” the Union minister said.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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