Palace shadow impacts Gwalior poll

Gwalior, Mar 2 (UNI) In Gwalior, everything revolves around the palace and in the 60th year of independence, palace politics dominates the Lok Sabha elections also.

Departing from tradition, for the sake of opposition, the scion of the royal family and Congress MP Jyotiraditya has joined the campaign trail against a member of the Scindia clan and Madhya Pradesh Tourism Minister Yashodhara Raje Scindia, the BJP nominee for the March 8 byelection in Gwalior.

Mr Jyotiraditya's initial absence from the campaigning gave credence to the belief that members of the royal clan were insulated from within and did not come out openly against each other.

The only exception was the Lok Sabha election of 1984 when then Rajmata Vijay Raje Scindia-supported BJP nominee Atal Behari Vajpayee had to face defeat as Mr Madhavrao Scindia filed his nomination as Congress candidate at the last moment.

On all other occasions, the palace nominees romped home as the royal family members preferred to contest from comparatively safer Guna, their fiefdom.

The byelection was caused by disqualification of Mr Ram Sevak Babuji (Congress) who was caught in the cash-for-querry scam.

Ms Yashodhara Raje Scindia is pitted in a 24-corner contest with businessman Ashok Singh of Congress as her main rival. Besides 18 independents, Mr Munnalal Goyal of Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party nominee Kedar Singh Vidhuri and Lok Janshakti Party's Phool Singh Baraiya were also in the fray. Dreaded dacoit Rambabu Gadaria's sister Ramshri Baghel is also in the fray as Rashtriya Samanata Dal nominee.

About 14 lakh electorate are scheduled to exercise their franchise in 1470 polling stations on March 8. The votes will be counted on March 11.

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