Palace Intrigues

How the Scindias keep it all in the family.

- Rahul Noronha

Campaigning for the Ater assembly bypolls on April 9, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan made some scathing references to the Scindia rulers’ purported collusion with the British in committing atrocities on the people of Bhind in 1857. It was ostensibly to target Jyotiraditya Scindia, who’s expected to be the Congress’s face in the 2018 assembly polls. But it’s stirred more than the usual summer storm within the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Now Chouhan must have been aware that there are more Scindia royals within the BJP than in the Congress. On cue, Yashodhara Raje, the youngest daughter of the late Vijayaraje Scindia and a minister in the Chouhan cabinet, retorted that the BJP in MP had been built with her mother’s “hard work and financial support”. To press her point, she also stayed away from the Ater campaign.