Congress leader and Guna MP Jyotiraditya Scindia speaks to reporters
Dismissing the possibility of any gain to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) due to Narendra Modi's campaign in Madhya Pradesh, Jyotiraditya Scindia, the Congress face in Assembly polls in the state feels the Gujarat Chief Minister's arrival is a "good omen" for his party and shows that the BJP is "not confident".
Union Minister and Guna MP Scindia, a choice of Rahul Gandhi as the campaign committee chief of the faction-ridden Congress state unit, said politics or public service is a "marathon not a sprint", indicating he is in for a long inning in state politics.
Mr Scindia, however, downplayed contentions that he is the Chief Ministerial candidate, saying he sticks to his 'lakshman rekha' (boundary line) that he is the campaign committee chief of the party and only one among the team of senior party leaders working to oust the BJP government.
In an interview to PTI on board a flight from Indore to Bhopal, the Scindia scion, who has been tasked to revive Congress in the BJP-ruled state reminds that Mr Modi was the BJP's in-charge of polls in Madhya Pradesh in 1998 that saw Congress coming to power.
"Obviously they (BJP) don't feel confident about the situation in Madhya Pradesh. As far Modi is concerned, he is more than welcome in MP. He is not a stranger to MP. He was the party in-charge of MP polls in 1998, when the BJP got trounced and the Congress government was formed.
"Wherever Modi has gone in the assembly polls, the Congress has come to power, whether it is Karnataka, Himachal, Uttarakhand. So he is more than welcome in MP. He is a good omen for us," Mr Scindia says.
Mr Modi is on a campaign spree in Madhya Pradesh. One of his rallies was in Guna. The others are in Chhattarpur, Sagar and the state capital Bhopal.
The young union minister has been on a whirlwind tour of the state from Gwalior to Indore and elsewhere assuring people that Congress is united and it's time to replace the BJP government, which he accuses of being "steeped in corruption".
The Union Minister, who has already covered meetings in 60 constituencies so far, hopes he will be able to hold around 150 public meetings by the time campaigning comes to an end. He, however, does not comment when asked whether it is true that there is area demarcation among party's regional satraps and one is not entering the domain of the other.
Asked why the people of the state want to replace the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government, Mr Scindia said, "Because of mis-governance, corruption, the state of the economy, the state of the tribals and the scheduled castes and because it is a government, which is steeped in corruption."
Describing the Congress manifesto for the state as a "positive blueprint", Mr Scindia slammed the Chief Minister for describing the Congress promises in the manifesto as a "dying declaration".
"When people get arrogant with power and make statements like this, then their fall begins. I think that politics must have a certain degree of grace, which is something that the BJP lacks," the Congress leader, who is referred to as Maharaj, said responding to Mr Chouhan's barb.