Jyotiraditya Scindia, who was inducted into the Union Cabinet on Wednesday evening, has been given charge of the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation.
A former minister in the UPA government, Scindia is one of the two former Congress leaders, the other one being ex-Maharashtra Chief Minister Narayan Rane, who were inducted into Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new-look Cabinet on Wednesday.
Scindia is a five-time MP and was a key leader of Congress before he left the party to join BJP in March last year. He played a key role in BJP`s return to power in Madhya Pradesh last year after Congress ruled the state for 15-months.
A total of 22 MLAs loyal to Scindia had resigned triggering a crisis in the Kamal Nath government. Articulate and charismatic, The 50-year-old was Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology in the Congress-led UPA-I government. He is a Rajya Sabha MP from Madhya Pradesh. He was the Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry in the UPA-II government between 2009 and 2012.
Belonging to Gwalior royal family, Scindia was first elected to Lok Sabha from Guna in 2002 after his father Madhavrao Scindia died in an aeroplane crash.
Madhavrao Scindia was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1971 at the age of 26 and went on to win nine consecutive elections from the Gwalior and Guna constituencies.
Jyotirdaditya Scindia suffered a shocking defeat from Guna parliamentary seat in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
As many as 43 leaders took oath in the first Union Cabinet reshuffle and expansion on Wednesday after Prime Minister Narendra Modi returned to power for a second term in May 2019. Some of the key figures inducted into PM Modi's cabinet expansion on Wednesday include Jyotiraditya Scindia, Bhupender Yadav, Sarbananda Sonowal, and Pashupati Kumar Paras.