Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia (born 1 January 1971; ) is an

Indian politician The Politics and Government of India works within the framework of the country's Constitution, which was adopted in 1950. India is a parliamentary secular democratic republic, described as a “sovereign, socialist, secular democratic republ ...

who is the 43rd Union Minister of Communications and the 10th Minister of Development of North Eastern Region since 2024. He was a Member of Parliament in the

Rajya Sabha Rajya Sabha (Council of States) is the upper house of the Parliament of India and functions as the institutional representation of India’s federal units — the states and union territories.https://rajyasabha.nic.in/ It is a key component o ...

representing the state of

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (; ; ) is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and the largest city is Indore, Indore. Other major cities includes Gwalior, Jabalpur, and Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar. Madhya Pradesh is the List of states and union te ...

from 2020 till his win in the

2024 Lok Sabha elections General elections were held in India from 19 April to 1 June 2024 in seven phases, to elect all 543 members of the Lok Sabha. Votes were counted and the result was declared on 4 June to form the 18th Lok Sabha. On 7 June 2024, Prime Ministe ...

. He is a Member of Parliament in the

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, also known as the House of the People, is the lower house of Parliament of India which is Bicameralism, bicameral, where the upper house is Rajya Sabha. Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by a ...

, representing the Guna constituency in Madhya Pradesh from 2002 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 vote ...

, and then since 4 June 2024. He is a former member of the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party, or simply the Congress, is a political parties in India, political party in India with deep roots in most regions of India. Founded on 28 December 1885, it was the first mo ...

(INC) from 2001 to 2020 and 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. BJP emerged out from Syama Prasad Mukherjee's ...

(BJP) since 2020. While a member of the INC, he was the Union Minister for Power and Corporate in the

second Manmohan Singh ministry The Second Manmohan Singh ministry came into existence after the general election in 2009. The results of the election were announced on 16 May 2009 and led to the formation of the 15th Lok Sabha. Manmohan Singh took the oath as the 13th Prim ...

from 2012 to 2014. Scindia is the son of politician

Madhavrao Scindia Madhavrao Jiwajirao Scindia (10 March 1945 – 30 September 2001) was an Indian politician and minister in the Government of India. He was a member of the Indian National Congress. He was viewed as a potential future prime ministerial candidat ...

, and a grandson of

Jiwajirao Scindia Sir Shrimant Jiwajirao Scindia KStJ (26 June 1916 – 16 July 1961) was the ruler of the Gwalior state during the British Raj and later the Rajpramukh (Governor) of the Indian state of Madhya Bharat. Jiwajirao was the Maharaja, of the pr ...

, the last ruler of the princely state of

Gwalior Gwalior (Hindi: , ) is a major city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh; It is known as the Music City of India having oldest Gwalior gharana, musical gharana in existence. It is a major sports, cultural, industrial, and political c ...

during the

British Raj The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...

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 ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

and Madhavi Raje Scindia. He originally belongs to

Kurmi Kurmi is traditionally a non-elite tiller caste in the lower Gangetic plain of India, especially southern regions of Awadh, eastern Uttar Pradesh and parts of Bihar and Jharkhand. The Kurmis came to be known for their exceptional work ethic, ...

caste. Scindia was educated at

Campion School, Mumbai Campion School is a Private school, private Catholic school, Catholic primary and secondary school for boys located at 13 Cooperage Road, Mumbai, in the state of Maharashtra, India. Established in 1943 by Jesuit Fr. Joseph Savall, the school is ...

and at

The Doon School The Doon School (informally Doon School or Doon) is a Selective school, selective all-boys Private school, private boarding school in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India, which was established in 1935. It was envisioned by Satish Ranjan Das, a lawyer ...

Dehradun Dehradun (), also known as Dehra Doon, is the winter 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, d ...

. At Doon School, Scindia was a contemporary of

Rahul Gandhi Rahul Rajiv Gandhi (; born 19 June 1970) is an Indian politician. A member of the Indian National Congress (INC), he is currently serving as the 12th leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha and as the member of the Lok Sabha for Rae Bareli Lok ...

. He then studied at St. Stephen's College, Delhi. He later went to

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...

, the undergraduate

liberal arts college A liberal arts college or liberal arts institution of higher education is a college with an emphasis on Undergraduate education, undergraduate study in the Liberal arts education, liberal arts of humanities and science. Such colleges aim to impart ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, where he graduated with BA degree in

Economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

in 1993. In 2001, he received a

Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular ...

from the

Stanford Graduate School of Business The Stanford Graduate School of Business is the Postgraduate education, graduate business school of Stanford University, a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California. For several years it has been the most selective ...

. Scindia is a grandson of

, the last Maharaja of the princely state of

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

Rajiv Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi (20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was an Indian statesman and pilot who served as the prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He took office after the Assassination of Indira Gandhi, assassination of his mother, then–prime ...

. His mother, Madhavi Raje (Kiran Rajya Lakshmi Devi), hails from the royal family of Nepal. He is married to Priyadarshini Raje Scindia who studied at Fort Convent School, Mumbai and later

Sophia College Sophia College (Autonomous) is an undergraduate women's college established in 1941 by Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is affiliated to the University of Mumbai. The governing body of The Society for the Higher Education of Women in In ...

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 aeroplane crash in

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh ( ; UP) is a States and union territories of India, state in North India, northern India. With over 241 million inhabitants, it is the List of states and union territories of India by population, most populated state in In ...

. 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, he won the

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, or a bypoll in India, is an election used to fill an office that has become vacant between general elections. A vacancy may arise as a result of an incumben ...

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. He 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. He 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. He was tasked by the Indian Planning Commission with preventing a repetition of the

July 2012 India blackout Two severe power outages affected most of North India, northern and East India, eastern India on 30 and 31 July 2012. The 30 July 2012 blackout affected over 400 million people and lasted about 13.5 hrs. During that period, it was the larg ...

, the largest power outage in history, which affected over 620 million people (about 9% of the world population). In May 2013, he 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, he was elected from Guna. In 2019, he lost his seat to

Krishna Pal Singh Yadav Krishna Pal Singh Yadav (born 15 January 1976; ) is an Indian politician and a former Member of Parliament from Madhya Pradesh's Guna constituency in the 17th Lok Sabha. He defeated INC candidate Jyotiraditya M. Scindia during the 2019 India ...

. 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, Scindia 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 List of chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh, 18th Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh for approximately 15 months and resigned after a 2020 Madhya Pradesh political crisis ...

chief minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union ter ...

on 23 March 2020. Nath's replacement,

Shivraj Singh Chouhan Shivraj Singh Chouhan (also spelt Chauhan; ; born 5 March 1959) is an Indian politician who is serving as the 32nd Minister of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare and the 23rd Minister of Rural Development since 11 June 2024. Chouhan served as th ...

, was sworn in as

chief minister of Madhya Pradesh The chief minister of Madhya Pradesh is the head of government, chief executive of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. In accordance with the Constitution of India, the Governors of states of India, governor is a state's ''de jure'' head, but ' ...

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

MP from Madhya Pradesh. On 7 July 2021, he was appointed as the Minister of Civil Aviation in

Second Modi ministry The Second Modi ministry, also called Modi 2.0 was the Union Council of Ministers of India, Council of Ministers headed by Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi that was formed after the 2019 Indian general election, 2019 general election whi ...

after a cabinet reshuffle in July 2021. In February 2022, he was appointed Prime Minister Modi's special envoy to Romania to oversee the evacuation of Indian nationals in Ukraine resulting from the ongoing

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

. As a part of

Operation Ganga Operation Ganga was an evacuation mission carried out by the Government of India, Indian government to rescue its citizens stranded in neighboring countries of Ukraine during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The citizens were transported f ...

, he oversaw the evacuation efforts of students and Indian professionals through

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...

and

Suceava Suceava () is a Municipiu, city in northeastern Romania. The seat of Suceava County, it is situated in the Historical regions of Romania, historical regions of Bukovina and Western Moldavia, Moldavia, northeastern Romania. It is the largest urban ...

Other roles

Scindia is the chairman of the regional

Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association The Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association (MPCA), headquartered in 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 Associat ...

(MPCA). After the

spot fixing Spot or SPOT may refer to: Places * Spot, North Carolina, a community in the United States * The Spot, New South Wales, a locality in Sydney, Australia * South Pole Traverse, sometimes called the South Pole Overland Traverse People * Spot Colli ...

scandal in the

Indian Premier League The Indian Premier League (IPL) is a professional Twenty20 (T20) cricket league in India, organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Founded in 2007, it features ten city-based Professional sports league organization, fr ...

was made apparent and 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 principal national governing body of the sport of cricket in India. Its headquarters are situated at the Cricket Centre in Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. BCCI is the wealthiest governing body ...

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

Scindia School The Scindia School is a residential boys’ school established in 1897 and situated in the Gwalior Fort in Gwalior, India. Initially called the Sardar’s School, it primarily served the sons of Indian royals and nobles. In 1933, the school bega ...

, which was founded by his great-grandfather,

Madho Rao Scindia Maharaja Sir Madhorao Scindia I of Gwalior (20 October 1876 – 5 June 1925), was the 6th Maharaja of Gwalior State, Gwalior belonging to the Scindia dynasty of the Marathas. Biography Madho Rao acceded to the throne in 1886 and ruled until ...

, in 1897. He is a hereditary patron of

Daly College The Daly College is a group of institutions consisting of a co-educational Private school, private boarding school, boarding, day school, a private junior school, an undergraduate management school and a postgraduate business school, located in ...

, 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 appointed by and ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. T ...

, and aristocracy of Central Indian princely states of the

Marathas The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern India, early modern polity in the Indian subcontinent. It comprised the realms of the Peshwa and four major independent List of Maratha dynasties and states, Ma ...

Rajput Rājpūt (, from Sanskrit ''rājaputra'' meaning "son of a king"), also called Thākur (), is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating fro ...

s and

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 Jaswa ...

s. He is also the chairman of

Madhav Institute of Technology and Science Madhav Institute of Technology and Science, formerly known as Madhav Engineering College and commonly referred to as MITS Gwalior, is a government-aided autonomous institute founded in 1957 and located in Gwalior in the state of Madhya Pradesh, ...

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 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 1999–2004 India MPs 2004–2009 India MPs 2009–2014 India MPs 2014–2019 India MPs 2024–2029 Rajya Sabha members from Madhya Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Madhya Pradesh Lok Sabha members from Madhya Pradesh Union ministers of state of India with independent charge Ministers of power of India Narendra Modi ministry People from Gwalior