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Vijayaraje Scindia dies

Vijayaraje Scindia, senior Bharatiya Janata Party politician and the rajmata (queen mother) of the erstwhile princely state of Gwalior, died early on Thursday after battling for life for a fortnight at Delhi's Apollo Hospital.

Scindia, 81, who was suffering from meningitis and was on a life-support system for the past few days, died at 0320 IST, doctors said.

Her body will be taken to Gwalior on Thursday afternoon where it will be cremated on Saturday.

Scindia's condition worsened on Wednesday when her kidneys and liver failed. She had been admitted to the hospital on January 2 in an unconscious state.

A leading figure in the BJP, she emerged from the confines of the Gwalior's royal household to plunge into the din and dust of politics and carve a niche for herself. A former Congress politician, she became a passionate proponent of the BJP's brand of Hindutva.

Born Lekha Divyeshwari in Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, in 1919, she was brought up by her maternal grandparents. Her grandfather was a Rana in exile from Nepal. Vijayaraje's mother died in childbirth and her father, Mahendra Thakur Singh, a deputy collector, had another wife and family to look after.

The rajmata, educated at home initially, later studied in Vasantha College, Benares, and Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow.

Inspired by the freedom movement, she joined the struggle for independence.

In 1941, she married Jiyajirao Scindia, the maharaja of Gwalior, and took the name Vijayaraje.

After her husband's death in 1960, Vijayaraje's cousin Sambhajirao Angre, better known as Sardar Angre, became her political mentor.

She was initiated into electoral politics in 1962 when she contested the Guna Lok Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh on a Congress ticket. Five years later, she quit the Congress and joined the Bharatiya Jan Sangh. She won the Kerera assembly seat as the party's candidate and plunged headlong in state politics.

Vijayaraje came to the forefront of the BJP leadership in 1980 when she was made one of its vice-presidents. She played a key role in propagating the BJP's Ayodhya theme and was considered a hardliner. She remained a BJP vice-president till 1998 when she stepped down on health grounds and quit electoral politics.

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