Jyotiraditya Scindia

The new air routes – Ahmedabad-Gwalior-Ahmedabad, Gwalior-Mumbai-Gwalior, Gwalior-Pune-Gwalior and Jabalpur-Surat-Jabalpur, will all be plied by SpiceJet

Earlier, Congress' youth wing chief Srinivas BV also took a jibe at Jyotiraditya Scindia on his inclusion in the Union Cabinet

The Cabinet overhaul saw Jyotiraditya Scindia getting Civil Aviation, a portfolio held by his late father Madhavrao Scindia.

The challenges awaiting Jyotiraditya Scindia, the new civil aviation minister, are many. While planned programmes like Air India divestment, airport privatisation and aviation fuel taxes would call for his focus, the immediate task is to navigate the industry back to the pre-pandemic levels.

Jyotiraditya Scindia will be replacing Hardeep Singh Puri, who had held the post of Civil Aviation Minister since 2019.

Jyotiraditya Scindia occupies the post which his late father Madhavrao Scindia once occupied, from 1991 until 1993 in the PV Narasimha Rao cabinet.

The expansion, first of the PM Modi's second cabinet, is likely to factor in representation from the five poll-bound states and also the 2024 general election, the reports said.

The work is related to the conversion of a rail line from narrow gauge to broad gauge in the Gwalior-Sheopur section, where train operations are closed since March 2020, the parliamentarian from MP pointed out in his letter dated June 19.

Jyotiraditya Scindia had left the Congress along with some legislators loyal to him to join the BJP last year. This led to the fall of the Kamal Nath-led Congress government in Madhya Pradesh.

Scindia had left the party along with some legislators loyal to him to join the BJP. This led to the fall of the Kamal Nath-led Congress government in Madhya Pradesh early last year.

This is the third expansion of the state cabinet ever since Shivraj Singh Chouhan took over as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh for the fourth term in March 2020 after the collapse of the Congress government.

Scindia, who arrived in Nagpur and met the RSS founder, said K B Hedgewarin's residence is a place of inspiration for people.

Congress MLA Jitu Patwari said Jyotiraditya Scindia is out on a tour "to do political management in the wake of a petition in court challenging the over-sized Madhya Pradesh cabinet".

Scindia, who quit the Congress and joined the BJP in March, said curbs should be imposed to check objectionable posts on social media.

Sanjay K Pandey, a political commentator and a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), said the two episodes involving Scindia and Pilot showed that the problem facing the Congress was very much internal.

The 28 new ministers who joined Shivraj Singh Chouhan's Cabinet include 20 of cabinet rank and eight ministers of state. The Chouhan ministry strength is now 34, including four women ministers.

At a virtual rally in Mungaoli, Jyotiraditya Scindia said the Congress was “desperate without chair (power)” and were "concerned because they can’t make money”.

Of the 28 new ministers who became a part of the MP Cabinet, nine were from the Jyotiraditya Scindia camp. As a result, several ministry hopefuls got excluded, including those pitched by former MP CM and senior BJP leader Uma Bharati, and Indore MLA Ramesh Mendola.

Singh's attack on Scindia came a day after the expansion of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhans cabinet which saw a lion's share of berths going to the supporters of the former Guna MP who joined the BJP in March.

Scindia along with 22 MLAs supporting him quit the Congress and joined the BJP in March, triggering the fall of the Kamal Nath government.