Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh has made an attempt to clear the air on the ouster of Jyotiraditya Scindia from the Congress, hinting at a sleight of hand by former chief minister Kamal Nath whose government was brought down by Scindia’s exit.

“My misfortune is that perhaps it’s in my destiny that I will always be accused of things I am not guilty of,” Singh told veteran journalist Milind Khandekar in a podcast streamed on Sunday.

Singh said the clash between Nath and Jyotiraditya was one of personality and not ideology.

“The central observers came to Bhopal and spoke with the MLAs. Then overwhelming majority, around 90 MLAs, was in favour of Kamal Nath, while only 24 or 25 wanted Scindia. I never believed he would switch to the BJP. Even a week before he quit, he had attended a state government event for farmers. Ministers close to him attended the cabinet meeting,” Singh said.

On March 10, 2020, the 54-year-old Stanford MBA and former Union minister Scindia walked out of the Congress, a party with which his family was associated for decades – including his grandmother Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia and his father, Madhavrao Scindia.

In the 2018 election to the 230-seat Madhya Pradesh Assembly, the Congress had won 114 seats, emerging as the single largest party, while the BJP stopped at 109. The Congress did well in the Chambal-Gwalior belt, a part of the erstwhile Gwalior kingdom ruled by the Scindias during the Raj days, winning 16 of the 34 seats.

Thirteen days after Scindia’s exit, the rickety Congress government collapsed, leading to the return of the BJP to power in the central Indian state.

Singh said he was not the reason why the Kamal Nath government fell after less than two years in power. “This is absolutely wrong. I had actually warned about such an event,” Singh said.

The former chief minister and current Rajya Sabha MP said he had tried to broker peace between the two warring factions, both heavyweights in the faction-riddled Madhya Pradesh Congress.

“I approached an industrialist who was close to both of them,” Singh said. “I told them if they are not brought on the same page, our government will fall. A dinner meeting was held [at the residence of the industrialist whose name Singh did not reveal]. I was also there. Some things were agreed upon. But were not implemented.

“Some minor points were raised like, this should happen, that should happen. We agreed that we’d implement this in Gwalior-Chambal region as was decided. Next day, a shortlist was submitted, I was also among the signatories. Those were never complied with.”

Singh did not specify the date in which the dinner meeting was held.

About a month ago at an event in Bhopal, Jyotiraditya seeing Digvijay Singh seated among the audience had stepped down and holding his hand took the senior politician to the dais.

“I have never had any problem with Madhavrao Scindia nor with Jyotiraditya,” Singh said in the podcast.

The ambitious Scindia, whose father had also been a Union minister and chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, was among the aspirants for the post of chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, a state where the Congress came to power with a wafer-thin majority in December 2018.

Sources said for decades in Madhya Pradesh Congress, Kamal Nath and Digvijay Singh were regarded as the Bada Bhai-Chhota Bhai.

Nath was occupied in Delhi and Singh called the shots in Bhopal. For most part of their political careers, Singh and Nath have worked together at times against the Scindias, the Shukla brothers – Vidya Charan and Shyama Charan – and also Arjun Singh.

In 1993, when Singh became the chief minister for the first time, two strongmen Nath and the late Arjun Singh had joined forces to keep Shyama Charan Shukla out of the race.

Political observers recall Singh sharing photographs of 31 newly elected MLAs meeting his son Jaivardhan, who had won from the Raghogarh seat, to keep Jyotiraditya out. Many believe Singh had shared the photograph to send the message that his son, contesting his second election and not a contender for the hot seat, had more support than the Scindia scion.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Jyotiraditya suffered a shocking defeat from the family seat of Guna and was left eyeing a Rajya Sabha seat.

Before he moved to the BJP, both Singh and Jyotiraditya were among the contenders for the Rajya Sabha elections in April 2020, but the younger politician was averse to be the second choice among the list of nominees from the Congress to the upper House. Singh was the first choice.

Sources said Sonia Gandhi had offered Jyotiraditya a Rajya Sabha seat from neighbouring Chhattisgarh to compensate for the loss of Guna.

“Jyotiraditya was suspicious that he was being pushed out of Madhya Pradesh and decided to move to the BJP,” said a Congress source.

Many feel that soon after the Chhattisgarh offer, Jyotiraditya decided on switching to the BJP and bringing down the Kamal Nath government. He was awarded with an MP seat in the upper House on a BJP ticket and a ministry in Narendra Modi’s second term.