Sources say the discussion between Scindia and the BJP had been going on for some months now. While Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar handled the negotiations from the BJP's side, a confidante of Scindia told Outlook that a senior member of Gujarat's erstwhile Baroda royal family too was roped in to convince the Congress leader to defect. Scindia's wife, Priyadarshini Raje, is a Baroda royal and her family is learnt to have close ties with the BJP and Modi. In 2014, when Modi had contested his first Lok Sabha poll from Baroda (he had also contested simultaneously from Varanasi, the seat he later retained), the Rajmata of Baroda's Gaekwad dynasty was among the four proposers of Modi's candidature.