Holding on to home turf is royal challenge in Gwalior

Gwalior MP Scindia had to concede to Chouhan’s wish to field her in place of unpopular sitting BJP MLA Makhanlal Rathore. “I didn’t have a choice,” she tells The Indian Express in Shivpuri. “The chief minister asked me to fight from this seat. He said he really valued my contribution as a minister (of tourism,sports and youth welfare in Chouhan’s cabinet before she won the Gwalior Lok Sabha bypoll in 2007). The chief minister said,‘I would really like you to contest from Shivpuri and be part of my cabinet’,if the BJP comes to power.”

But she declares a plan to quit politics. “I have spent 25 years in politics and these will be my last five years. Let the next generation take over,” she says,hastening to clarify it does not mean the entry of her son Akshay in politics. “My son stays in the US. Let’s not read any meaning in it. Let’s not get into that. He is happy coming down here to help his mother during the elections.”

Although she is confident she will win “even if it is by one vote”,the tension is obvious at a lawyers’ meeting Saturday when she notes how “there have been lots of changes on the ground in a span of seven years” and how she got “14 days only” to cover 204 villages and 1.5 lakh voters.

In Gwalior East,where the Scindia family’s Jaivilas Palace too falls,Maya Singh is no less tense. “They are lying that Maya Mami will win and then shift to Delhi,” she was telling a gathering minutes before her Rajya Sabha colleague Hema Malini arrived Friday evening to canvass for her. “I am in politics because of the inspiration of Rajmata. My husband lives here. My house is in ward No 58 (Rani Mahal on Jaivilas Palace campus)… I go to Delhi because Parliament is in Delhi.”

Maya Singh has reason to feel nervous. Sitting BJP MLA Anup Mishra,nephew of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee,shifted to Bhitarwar constituency leaving her to account for all his unfulfilled promises. The Congress has fielded a formidable challenger in Munnalal Goyal. “She may be from the royal family but how does it help us? Munnalal is a hands-on man who is always there when we need him,” says a shopkeeper at Shinde ki Chhawani.

In Shivpuri,while people are still in awe of “Maharaj”,they note that mahal politics is not good enough to get them water or jobs or security. Mokam Singh of Bachaura village is sulking because he got no compensation from the government for the destruction of soybean crops worth Rs 3 lakh during excessive rains. Kesarbai,70,a beldar (labourer),is bitter about not getting old-age pension “even after giving 50 applications to 50 people”.

And Basant Kumar Kushwaha points at a tubewell in the middle of filth and squelch with pigs wallowing in them. “That tubewell caters to 2000 people here. Virendra Raghuvansi (the Congress candidate) used to bring water tankers for us,” he says. “And look at the number of cars BJP leaders have got in recent times. Only well-off people can get BPL cards. While PDS shops have no grains,BJP leaders’ flour mills are doing very well.”

Scindia is aware of the problems. “Why should you stay with pigs?” she tells lawyers at the meeting. “In what century are we staying? At two places I saw slush and filth around the tubewell. I have instructed my people to sit with nagar palika officials from the 26th to the 4th and get a blueprint of what we need to do. I should know how much money I need to bring from the government.”

To The Indian Express,she says,“I am very much zameeni. Are you talking about those Hindi films in which you have those cruel Thakurs in palaces? Calling it a mahal-versus-commoner contest is a misnomer. It is just a building. Do you refer to Buckingham Palace like that? You don’t refer to the queen like that…”

Harpreet Singh,also known as Happy Sardar,of Banskheri village tries to sum up local politics. “Everything is linked to mahal politics here. People here know that Maharaj (Yashodhara Raje Scindia) is going to win,but they will vote for the Congress,” he says.

Since 1957,when Vijayaraje Scindia contested her first Lok Sabha election,she and five members of her family have gone on to win some 25 Lok Sabha elections together. Members of the family have lost only twice in elections — Vijayaraje aje Scindia to Indira Gandhi from Rae Bareli in 1980 and Vasundhara Raje from Bhind in 1984.

Regardless of the results,“mahal politics” as they call it will remain the winner. Jyotiraditya Scindia is the chief campaigner in the “ common man’s camp”.