Cabinet expansion: Full list of 43 ministers to be sworn-in todayNew Delhi, July 07: Jyotiraditya Scindia, who left the Congress in 2020 ahead of regime change in Madhya Pradesh, made a comeback in the Union Cabinet. This time, and for the first time, as an NDA leader.
Born on 1 January 1971 in Mumbai, Scindia is a politician. His family has been into politics ever since his grandmother, Vijayaraje Scindia joined politics back in 1957 and won the Guna seat from the Congress Party. Within a decade, she too, had switched to Bhartiya Jan Sangh, which is the predecessor of the BJP.
He is from the Scindia family that once ruled in Gwalior and is a former Member of Parliament, representing the Guna constituency in the state of Madhya Pradesh.
Scindia's long and eventful political career in the Congress party started after his father Madhavrao Scindia's untimely death in 2001.
Cabinet expansion: Full list of 43 ministers to be sworn-in today
He was a member of the Congress party and was a Minister of State with independent charge for Power in the cabinet of prime minister Manmohan Singh from October 2012 until May 2014.
And on 10 March, 2020 - on the birth anniversary of his father - Scindia embarked on a new political journey in his life with the BJP.
He quit the Congress on 10 March, 2020 citing disgruntlement with the top leadership and joined the BJP the following day.
Background:
Scindia is a grandson of Jivajirao Scindia, the last Maharaja of the princely state of Gwalior, who, although joining the Dominion of India in 1947, was allowed his former titles and privileges, including an annual remuneration, called the privy purse.
His parents were Madhavrao Scindia and Madhavi Raje Scindia, former rulers of Gwalior, a Maratha princely state. Upon his death in 1961, his son, Madhavrao Scindia (Jyotiraditya's father) became the last titular Maharajah of Gwalior, as the 26th amendment to the Constitution of India promulgated in 1971, the Government of India abolished all official symbols of princely India, including titles, privileges, and privy purses.
His mother Madhavi Raje Scindia (Kiran Rajya Lakshmi Devi) was great-granddaughter of Prime Minister of Nepal and Maharaja of Kaski and Lamjung Juddha Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana, a patrilineal descendant of Sardar Ramakrishna Kunwar of Gorkha.
Education:
In 1993, he graduated with an B.A degree in Economics from Harvard College, the undergraduate liberal arts college of Harvard University. In 2001, he received an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.
Marriage and children:
He is married to Priyadarshini Raje Scindia of the Gaekwad family of Baroda, from the Maratha Princely state. When Scindia met his wife over a family dinner for the first time in 1991, it is said that he had fallen in love with her at first sight. He was living in the US and she was in Mumbai then. They were finally married in December 1994.
The couple was blessed with two children: Mahanaryaman Scindia (Son) and Ananya Scindia (Daughter). Twenty-four-year-old Mahanaryaman has graduated from Yale University in the US.
He is 5 feet 6 inch or 168 cm tall and weighs in around 75 kg or 165 lbs. His eye and hair colour is black. Scindia has one sister, Chitrangada Raje Scindia who is married to Vikramaditya Singh, prince of Kashmir on 11 December 1987.
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