Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia (born 1 January 1971) is an

Indian politician Politics of India works within the framework of the country's Constitution. India is a parliamentary democratic secular republic in which the president of India is the head of state & first citizen of India and the prime minister of India i ...

who serves as the Minister of Civil Aviation, a position his father also held from 1991 to 1993. He also heads the

Ministry of Steel The Ministry of Steel is an executive branch agency of the Government of India that is responsible for formulating all policies regarding steel production, distribution and pricing in India. As of July 2021, the ministry is headed by a Secretary ...

. He is a

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

in the

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...

representing the State of

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the second ...

. He is a former

in the

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-p ...

, representing the Guna constituency in Madhya Pradesh until his defeat in the

2019 Indian general election General elections were held in India in seven phases from 11 April to 19 May 2019 to elect the members of the 17th Lok Sabha. Votes were counted and the result was declared on 23 May. Around 912 million people were eligible to vote, and voter ...

. He is a former member of the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British E ...

(INC) and presently a member of the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the List of ruling p ...

(BJP). While a member of the INC, Scindia was a Minister of State with independent charge for various ministries between 2007 to 2014 in the cabinet of

Prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

Manmohan Singh Manmohan Singh (; born 26 September 1932) is an Indian politician, economist and statesman who served as the 13th prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. He is also the third longest-serving prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indir ...

from October 2012 until May 2014. In March 2020, he severed all ties with

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

and joined the BJP. Scindia is the son of the late Indian politician, Madhavrao Scindia, and a grandson of

Jivajirao Scindia Maharaja Jivajirao Scindia KStJ (26 June 1916 – 16 July 1961) was an Indian prince and government official. In the British Raj, he was the ruling Maharaja of the princely state of Gwalior in central India from 1925 until 1947. After ...

, the last ruler of the

princely state A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, subject to ...

Gwalior Gwalior() is a major city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh; it lies in northern part of Madhya Pradesh and is one of the Counter-magnet cities. Located south of Delhi, the capital city of India, from Agra and from Bhopal, the s ...

during the

British Raj The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was him ...

in India. Jyotiraditya was briefly the titular Crown Prince of Gwalior in 1971, until the privy purses and titles of Indian royals were abolished by the government in 1971.

Early life and education

Scindia was born on 1 January 1971 in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

to Madhavrao Scindia and Madhavi Raje Scindia. He originally belongs to Kurmi caste. He was educated at

Campion School, Mumbai , motto_translation = Joy in Truth , established = , type = Private primary and secondary school , religion = Catholicism , denomination = Jesuits , patron ...

and at The Doon School,

Dehradun Dehradun () is the capital and the List of cities in Uttarakhand by population, most populous city of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous Dehradun district, district and is governed by the Dehr ...

. Scindia was admitted to

St. Stephen's College, Delhi St. Stephen's College is a constituent college of the University of Delhi, widely regarded as one of the oldest and most prestigious colleges for arts and sciences in India. It was established in 1881 by the Cambridge Mission to Delhi. The college ...

University of Delhi Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and is recognized as an Institute of Eminence (IoE ...

. He later transferred to

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher ...

, the undergraduate

liberal arts college A liberal arts college or liberal arts institution of higher education is a college with an emphasis on undergraduate study in liberal arts and sciences. Such colleges aim to impart a broad general knowledge and develop general intellectual ca ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

, where he graduated with BA degree in

Economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...

in 1993. In 2001, he received a

Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

from the

Stanford Graduate School of Business The Stanford Graduate School of Business (also known as Stanford GSB) is the graduate business school of Stanford University, a private research university in Stanford, California. For several years it has been the most selective business schoo ...

. Scindia is a grandson of

, the last Maharaja of the

. His father Madhavrao Scindia was an Indian politician and a minister in the government of

Rajiv Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi (; 20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was an Indian politician who served as the sixth prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He took office after the 1984 assassination of his mother, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to beco ...

. Scindia's mother is Madhavi Raje Scindia (Kiran Rajya Lakshmi Devi). He is married to

Priyadarshini Raje Scindia Priyadarshini Raje Scindia (née Gaekwad; born 16 February 1975) is married to the Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia. Biography Scindia was born in 1975. Her father, ''Kumar'' Sangramsinh Gaekwad, was the eighth child and third ...

Political career

Indian National Congress

On 30 September 2001, the Guna constituency fell vacant due to the death of Scindia's father the sitting MP Madhavrao Scindia in an airplane crash in

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 195 ...

. On 18 December, he formally joined the INC and pledged to uphold the "secular, liberal and social justice values" of his father. On 24 February, Scindia won the

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election ( Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to ...

in Guna, defeating his nearest rival, Desh Raj Singh Yadav of the BJP, by a margin of approximately 450,000 votes. He was re-elected in May 2004, and was introduced to the Union Council of Ministers in 2007 as Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology. He was then re-elected in 2009 for a third consecutive term and became Minister of State for Commerce and Industry. Scindia was appointed Minister of State for Communication in 2007 later as minister of state independent charge for Power in a cabinet reshuffle which drafted a number of younger politicians into the Indian cabinet, including two other scions of princely families, R. P. N. Singh and Jitendra Singh. Scindia was among the richest ministers in the UPA government with assets valued at including investments in Indian and foreign securities worth over and jewellery worth over . In 2010, he filed a legal claim to be the sole inheritor of the property belonging to his late father worth , however this was challenged in court by his aunts. Scindia was tasked by the Indian Planning Commission with preventing a repetition of the

July 2012 India blackout Two severe power blackouts affected most of northern and eastern India on 30 and 31 July 2012. The 30 July 2012 blackout affected over 400 million people and was briefly the largest power outage in history by number of people affected, beating ...

, the largest power outage in history, which affected over 620 million people (about 9% of the world population). In May 2013, Scindia claimed that checks and balances had been put in place to prevent any recurrence of grid collapse and that India would have the world's largest integrated grid by January 2014. In 2014, Scindia was elected from Guna but lost his seat to

Krishna Pal Singh Yadav Krishna Pal Singh Yadav (born 15 January 1976) is an Indian politician and a Member of Parliament from Guna in Madhya Pradesh. He defeated Jyotiraditya Scindia from INC during 2019 Lok Sabha election. Yadav had even worked as Scindia's Member ...

. In 2019, he was appointed as General Secretary in-charge for Uttar Pradesh West along with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

Bharatiya Janata Party

Citing disgruntlement with the INC leadership, Scinidia quit the Congress party on . The Congress party then released a statement claiming that he had been expelled for "anti-party activities." He joined the BJP on 11 March 2020. Other MLAs loyal to him also resigned from the INC and their MLA posts. This led to the

2020 Madhya Pradesh political crisis In March 2020, a political crisis took place in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India, due to the resignation of 22 sitting MLAs of the Indian National Congress party from the state's Legislative Assembly. It eventually led to the fall of the Ka ...

which in turn resulted in the resignation of

Kamal Nath Kamal Nath (born 18 November 1946) is an Indian politician who served as the 18th Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh for approximately 15 months and resigned after a political crisis. He was the Leader of the Opposition in the Madhya Pradesh Legi ...

as Chief Minister on 23 March 2020. Nath’s replacement,

Shivraj Singh Chouhan Shivraj Singh Chouhan (born 5 March 1959), is an Indian politician and member of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is the 17th and current Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, having been elected to the same position 3 times in the past, and a Member ...

, was sworn in as

Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh The chief minister of Madhya Pradesh is the chief executive of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. In accordance with the Constitution of India, the governor is a state's ''de jure'' head, but ''de facto'' executive authority rests with the ch ...

on 23 March 2020. On 19 June 2020, Scindia was elected a BJP

MP from Madhya Pradesh. On 7 July 2021, Scindia was appointed as the Minister of Civil Aviation in Second Modi ministry after a cabinet reshuffle in July 2021. In February 2022, Scindia was appointed PM Modi's special envoy to Romania to oversee the evacuation of Indian nationals in Ukraine resulting from during the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. A ...

. As a part of Operation Ganga, he is overseeing the evacuation efforts of students and Indian professionals through

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north o ...

and

Suceava Suceava () is the largest urban settlement and the seat town ( ro, oraș reședință de județ) of Suceava County, situated in the historical region of Bukovina, northeastern Romania, and at the crossroads of Central and Eastern Europe. Klaus Pet ...

Other roles

Scindia is chairman of the regional

Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association The Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association (MPCA), headquartered at Indore, India, is the governing body of cricket in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and the Madhya Pradesh cricket team. The board was formed in 1940 as the Holkar Cricket Associati ...

(MPCA). After the

spot fixing Spot-fixing is illegal activity in a sport in which a specific aspect of a game, unrelated to the final result but upon which a betting market exists, is fixed in an attempt to ensure a certain result in a proposition bet. Examples include someth ...

scandal in the

Indian Premier League The Indian Premier League (IPL), also known as TATA IPL for sponsorship reasons, is a men's T20 franchise cricket league of India. It is annually contested by ten teams based out of seven Indian cities and three Indian states. The leagu ...

was made apparent and

Sanjay Jagdale Sanjay Madansingh Jagdale (born 22 September 1950 in Indore, Madhya Pradesh) is a former Indian cricketer and a former member of the Selection Committee. He is the son of former Indian national team selector Madhavsinh Jagdale. Sanjay Jagdale ...

, a member of the MPCA, resigned from his post as secretary in the

Board of Control for Cricket in India The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is the national governing body for cricket in India. Its headquarters are situated at Cricket centre, Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. The BCCI is the richest governing body of cricket in the worl ...

, Scindia spoke out against corruption in Indian cricket. Scindia is President of the Board of Governors of

Scindia School The Scindia School is an Indian boarding school for boys, established in year 1897, and situated in the historic Gwalior Fort, in the city of Gwalior. It was originally started exclusively for royals and nobles of Indian princely states, parti ...

, which was founded by his great-grandfather,

Madho Rao Scindia Maharaja Sir Madho Rao Scindia of Gwalior (20 October 1876 – 5 June 1925), was the 5th Maharaja of Gwalior State, Gwalior belonging to the Scindian dynasty of the Marathas. Biography Madho Rao acceded to the throne in 1886 and ruled until ...

, in 1897. The Scindia Pavillion, Circa 1910's

He is also a hereditary patron of Daly College, which was established in 1870 to educate the children of the royalty,

nobility Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The character ...

, and aristocracy of Central Indian princely states of the

Marathas The Marathi people ( Marathi: मराठी लोक) or Marathis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed as a ...

Rajput Rajput (from Sanskrit ''raja-putra'' 'son of a king') is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Ra ...

Mohameddan ''Mohammedan'' (also spelled ''Muhammadan'', ''Mahommedan'', ''Mahomedan'' or ''Mahometan'') is a term for a follower of Muhammad, the Islamic prophet. It is used as both a noun and an adjective, meaning belonging or relating to, either Muham ...

s &

Bundela The Bundela is a Rajput clan. Over several generations, the cadet lineages of Bundela Rajputs founded several states in area what came to be known as Bundelkhand anciently known as Chedi Kingdom from the 16th century. Etymology As per Jaswant ...

s. Scindia is chairman of Madhav Institute of Technology and Science.

References

, - , - , - , -

External links

Members of Fourteenth Lok Sabha - Parliament of India website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Scindia, Jyotiraditya 1971 births Living people Indian Hindus The Doon School alumni Scindia dynasty of Gwalior Madhya Pradesh politicians Indian National Congress politicians from Madhya Pradesh Delhi University alumni Harvard College alumni Harvard University alumni Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni Stanford University alumni India MPs 2004–2009 India MPs 2009–2014 Rajya Sabha members from Madhya Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Madhya Pradesh India MPs 1999–2004 Lok Sabha members from Madhya Pradesh India MPs 2014–2019 Union ministers of state of India with independent charge Ministers of Power of India Narendra Modi ministry