Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia dismisses rumours that he quit party
The rumours began after he removed his affiliation to the party from his Twitter biography.
Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia on Monday dismissed rumours that he had resigned from the party. The rumours began after he removed his affiliation to the party from his Twitter biography and changed it to “public servant, cricket enthusiast”.
Earlier, the Congress MP’s profile said that he was a “former member of Parliament, former minister for power, MoS [Minister of State] commerce and industry; MoS [Minister of State] communications, IT [information technology] and post”.
Refuting the speculations, Scindia said he had made the change a month ago. “On people’s advice I had made my bio shorter,” he told ANI. “Rumours regarding this are baseless.”
The Congress leader said that he removed the ministerial posts he held earlier as they were all available on the internet. “I don’t understand how people have idle time,” he told The Indian Express. “Let people put two and two or four and four together.”
Speculations suggested that Scindia was unhappy after he was not made the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee chief, according to the newspaper.
Madhya Pradesh Congress Spokesperson Narendra Saluja downplayed the matter, saying that even Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had changed his Twitter bio, PTI reported. “What is wrong with [Scindia] changing his Twitter handle status?” Saluja said. “He is not Guna MP now. Why is a buzz being created now when he changed his status a month ago? Scindiaji is a true and dedicated Congressman who will never leave the party.”
However, state BJP Spokesperson Deepak Vijayvargiya claimed that the change in Scindia’s Twitter bio showed that there are problems between him and the party. “Scindia had been often expressing his displeasure publicly over the state governments functioning,” the spokesperson said. “He is not getting on well with the Congress.”
Vijayvargiya added that Scindia and his supporters are being sidelined in the Madhya Pradesh Congress. The BJP leader said that after losing the chief minister’s post to Kamal Nath, Scindia was also not made the head of the Congress’ state unit.
Last month, Scindia said that the Congress needed to do a bit of introspection after senior party colleague Salman Khurshid said that there was a “leadership vacuum” in the party. Former Congress President Rahul Gandhi resigned as Congress president on July 3, over a month after the Lok Sabha election results were announced earlier this year. Following this, Sonia Gandhi took over as interim party president on August 10.