Gifts of the man from Gwalior

gwalior/bhopal: madhavrao scindia may not have been deeply immersed in the state politics, except in matters of his immediate interests in and around gwalior, but even those opposed to him readily admit that the state reaped a generous ''harvest'' from his stint in power at the centre. apart from what the 'maharaj' may have done for gwalior proper during his virtual reign as the transport boss during the rajiv gandhi regime, denizens in the state capital remain indebted to him for two reasons: the bhopal-shatabdi express was begun by him and he gave the state capital the swanky new habibganj railway station which in course of time is expected to become the city's main hub for arrivals and departures.the all-too noticeable facelift to the gwalior railway station was also his handiwork. these two legacies would alone suffice to keep him in the collective memory of people. local politicians in gwalior credit him with making the 'right choice'' of officers to carry out his administrative wishes. loyalty was important to him, but he generally never settled for second raters, observed a colleague in the political circuit. one of scindia's closest friends and party loyalist, vitthalbhai patel (a former minister better known as the lyricist of the popular hindi film number jhoot bole kauva kate in raj kapoor's bobby) told this newspaper, what distinguished madhavrao from the average politician was the complete absence of a ''revengeful'' mindset. to that extent he emexplified a good leadership. after rajiv, he was the only one in the party with a squeaky clean image. patel said he had known scindia since 1968 when the latter flagged off a 2000 km car rally in which he was a participant. ''he also made me director at air-india''. patel said that only scindia could have mustered courage to warn digvijay singh of the dangers of denying sufficient power to farmers regardless of the crisis. the real madhavrao, he said, was the man in gwalior, not the one who harangued the bjp in the lok sabha, and added, ''in delhi he wore a permanent mask''.