Jyotiraditya Scindia’s loyalists risk COVID-19 infection for politics

Even as COVID-19 cases in Madhya Pradesh have risen above 10,000, spread of the pandemic does not seem to have deterred Jyotiraditya Scindia’s loyalists from exposing their supporters to the risk of infection ahead of the by-elections due in September.

On Friday, cabinet minister Govind Singh Rajput paraded his supporters in Sagar, flagrantly violating social distancing norms. Rajput, who had quit the Congress with Scindia in March, organised a public function where his loyalists from his Surkhi assembly constituency took BJP membership. The supporters, most of them not wearing masks, jostled with one another to flesh v-sign with Rajput who was also without mask.

Before Rajput, other Scindia confidantes had staged similar regrettable spectacles with utter disdain for social distancing. Pradyumn Singh had brought his supporters from Gwalior to Bhopal for joining BJP in presence of chief minister Shivraj Singh.

Then too, the workers milled around with impunity at the BJP state office. Two weeks, later, the BJP office witnessed repetition of same chaotic scenes when former minister Prabhuram Choudhary’s followers joined the party. In Indore, yet another Scindia acolyte Tulsi Silawat led his followers in breaking social distancing norms.