On his 80th birthday, remembering the man who could well have been PM had he not died in an air crash.
Though his mother Rajmata Vijaya Raje Scindia was associated with the Jan Sangh and BJP, 'Maharaj' -- as Madhavrao was universally known -- never joined either party.
Maharaj quit the Congress once, in 1996 after he was accused of corruption in the Jain Hawala Case.
With another MP strongman Arjun Singh, he formed the Madhya Pradesh Vikas Congress.
2 years later, he returned to the Congress fold and became a trusted Sonia Gandhi adviser.
At 26, in 1971, the then maharaja of Gwalior won his 1st election. He was elected to the Lok Sabha 9 times.
Madhavrao may have been a lifelong Congressmen, but his only son Jyotiraditya joined the BJP in 2020 on his father's 75th birthday for a 'fresh start'.
In 1984, Maharaj defeated Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Gwalior, perhaps the most stunning result that Lok Sabha election.
Arguably, the best-performing railway minister since Independence, Madhavrao introduced the Shatabdi Express, introduced changes in railway cuisine and cutlery, introduced TV monitors showing train timings among other measures.
As civil aviation minister from 1991-1993, he paved the way for privatisation of the aviation sector.
Prior to this government-run Air India and Indian Airlines had a monopoly over the Indian skies.
Once Scindia took Indian cricketers out hunting.
At midnight 'dacoits' kidnapped the petrified cricketers.
Maharaj later revealed that the 'dacoits' were his employees. :))
Scindia was president of the Board of Cricket for Cricket in India from 1991 to 1993 and brought his brand of professionalism to the BCCI.
On his way to address a Congress rally in Kanpur, his plane crashed in Mainpuri, UP, on September 30, 2001. He was just 56 years old.