Kamal Nath became CM as Gwalior-Chambal elected Congress candidates in 2018: Jyotiraditya Scindia

BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia tells ET’s Aman Sharma that he is confident that voters in Madhya Pradesh will repose their trust in the BJP in the by-polls. Edited Excerpts

Q. How confident are you that BJP will retain power in Madhya Pradesh after the 28 by-polls?
I’m very clear that the Congress government did not last is because it completely abdicated its responsibility to the people of Madhya Pradesh. It reneged on all its promises made during the campaign. What Shivraj Singh Chouhan has done is not only battle Corona but also he and I have worked on a very hectic 6-7 months of developmental agenda and much anticipated and much required development works for these areas have been approved running into thousands of crores. The CM has put in place a blueprint for the state, be it for farmers with the CM Kisan Nidhi of Rs 4000, maximum procurement of wheat in the country and release of the fasal bima yojana into farmer accounts which Kamal Nath had locked up in his treasury. Sambhal yojana and Ladli laxmi yojana which had been scrapped by the previous government have been reintroduced. We are very confident that people will repose their trust in the BJP government and we will have a resounding success. All these 28 seats were Congress seats and we have everything to gain and Congress has everything to lose. The writing is very much written boldly on the wall for the Congress in MP.

Q. Kamal Nath has called you a Gaddar (traitor)
The fact is that Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh backstabbed people — they are the Gaddars (traitors) towards the 7.5 crore people of MP. For me, the most important is the fulfillment of the aspirations of people and I have always regarded myself as a jansewak with a sole development agenda. Kamal Nath did not even complete even a single poll promise in 15 months.

Q. The last elections in MP saw a united trio in you, Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh. It seems to have all become very bitter now
Unfortunately so, but I do not want to comment on the Congress situation. But I want to say that the Gwalior-Chambal region contributed handsomely to the formation of the Congress government. Congress had never earlier won more than 18-20 seats in this region but we swept in last polls and won 26 out of 34 seats. If we had got 21 out of 34 seats and fallen short of even 5 seats, you would not have seen Kamal Nath being the CM but Shivraj Singh Chouhan being the CM as the difference between the BJP and the Congress was only 6 seats. I was very happy at Kamal Nath being appointed as the CM but then the behaviour towards the people of the state, being locked up in Vallabh Bhawan from day to night, not being able to tour even a single district and being completely hostile to people’s representatives (MLAs), no grassroot worker had access to him and no development was done. All this left me with no choice. Running a corrupt government was not the kind of government we envisaged when we worked so hard to form it. MLA’s in the Congress have been leaving by the droves. I salute the 22 MLAs who resigned as it is very difficult to leave a post and six of them were cabinet ministers. Never in history of country have you had 22 MLA’s leave after a period of 15 months. That shows the arrogance of the Kamal Nath government and the indignity that was meted out to these lawmakers.

Q. Rahul Gandhi said you were the only leader who could walk any time into his house...
I don’t want to dwell into the past. The past is the past. I have maintained a very dignified silence on this issue for the last seven months and I want to keep it that way. I believe in positivity and want to concentrate on the present and the future.

Q. Sachin Pilot also raised his grievance but stayed back in the party
I don't want to get into comparisons. My mind was made up given the government was working completely in odds with the aspirations of people. It is not that I did not voice that concern. I voiced it multiple times.

Q. You are seen visiting RSS Headquarters now and backing abrogation of Article 370...
I backed the abrogation of Article 370 in J&K when I was in the Congress party and in the CWC I was the lone voice who raised this issue. I completely supported the SC verdict in CWC with regard to Ram Mandir. I had been very vocal in raising issues with regard to the robustness of the Congress party policies.