Bhopal: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kailash Vijayvargiya has ruled himself out of the chief ministerial race in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, saying he is mahamantri (national general secretary) in the party, “who is bigger than a chief minister”.
In an interview to ThePrint Monday, Vijayvargiya, party’s candidate from Indore-I constituency, also said that he himself had requested the BJP leadership to remove him as West Bengal in-charge because he would have only been “making the rounds of courts” due to “false cases” filed against him by the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) government.
Vijayvargiya — known to be a confidante of senior party leader and Home Minister Amit Shah — had led the BJP to an unprecedented high in Bengal politics, with the party dislodging the Left and the Congress to become the principal opposition.
In the 2021 Bengal election, when Vijayvargiya was state in-charge, the BJP won 77 of 294 seats (up from three seats it had won in 2016) with 38 percent vote share, while it had won 18 of 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the 2019 general election.
However, right after the 2021 election, many dissenting voices surfaced against Vijayvargiya with allegations of cadre mismanagement and sidelining of leaders.
In August 2022, the party divested him of the charge of Bengal and gave him no other organisational responsibility after that, though he continued as national general secretary.
“See, we did very good work in West Bengal. We were praised for it too, including by the PM. But there were so many false cases registered against me that, had I stayed in Bengal, I would be circling the courts. So I requested the party to remove me from there,” he told ThePrint, adding that there were around 30-35 cases lodged against him and, of these, about eight to 10 “ended just recently”. This is the first time that Vijayvargiya has publicly spoken about his version of why he lost charge of West Bengal.
“In Bengal, (CM) Mamataji’s attitude had become that of an enemy,” he said. “It was also the advice of the party that I should not be there.”
While he has been laying low in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh — Vijayvargiya hails from and began his political career from the state’s Indore city — without any organisational responsibility entrusted to him, the high command announced him as a candidate from Indore-I constituency.
In several videos that came to light soon after the release of the party’s second list for MP, which goes to polls on 17 November, Vijayvargiya expressed surprise at his candidature.
When asked about it, he told ThePrint: “A person has a mindset. I was not in the mindset to contest elections.”
“Decisions taken by the party cannot be questioned, whether you feel they are right or wrong. Whatever the party decides is right. So if the party has decided not to give two tickets in one family, then it’s correct,” he sais, referring to speculation that his son, Akash Vijayvargiya, a sitting BJP MLA from Indore-3, would have to sit it out in the coming election since Vijayvargiya senior had been picked as candidate.
When asked if he could be a CM candidate for Madhya Pradesh, Vijayvargiya said: “Main toh mukhyamantri se bhi bada mahamantri hoon party ka (I’m bigger than the CM, I’m mahamantri of the party).”
“I’m quite senior within the party. Whoever becomes the CM or minister will not be senior to me,” he said. “My statements should be taken in the sense that I’m the mahamantri and it is not a small post within the BJP. In the Congress, there are many mahamantris, so much so that they don’t recognise each other. But when it comes to the BJP, there are just eight, there won’t be a ninth mahamantri.”
Also Read: Why Kailash Vijayvargiya remains favourite of BJP bosses despite backlash for Bengal loss
‘No anti-incumbency’
Speaking about the MP polls, Vijayvargiya claimed that the BJP was heading towards a clear majority and would win 150 to 160 of the 230 assembly seats in the state led by CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan. He denied that the party was facing any anti-incumbency despite its long rule in the state.
“When the Kamal Nath-led Congress government came to power in the state (in December 2018) for 15 months, people saw the difference in Congress and BJP rule, and it ended any feeling of anti-incumbency that might have been there against the BJP. The Congress had stopped the schemes for the poor, such as Ladli Laxmi Yojana, Mukhya Mantri Kanyadaan Yojana, even the Sambal card. This difference in governance seen by people proved beneficial for us,” he told ThePrint.
“Had the Congress not come to power, we would have felt anti-incumbency, but now there is a feeling of pro-incumbency,” he added.
When asked if the BJP’s second list for Madhya Pradesh had names of seven Lok Sabha MPs, including three Union ministers, apart from Vijayvargiya, representing various regions of the state to counter anti-incumbency, he said: “Our central leadership has taken decisions which have left the Congress dumbfounded. The Congress leaders don’t know how to respond to it.”
“Despite the tall claims of Kamal Nath that the Congress will release its candidate list two months before the election, they haven’t declared candidates till date. They don’t have an answer to the BJP’s move. We are on the ground while the Congress is still looking for answers,” Vijayvargiya added.
Six-time MLA known for efficiency
A staunch RSS man, a former mayor of Indore, and a six-time MLA, Vijayvargiya is known for his organisational skills and efficiency.
In 2014, when Vijayvargiya was a minister in the MP cabinet, Amit Shah called him to Delhi, and thereafter appointed him as in-charge of Haryana for the assembly polls that year. The BJP won and formed a government for the first time in the state.
He was then made the national general secretary and subsequently made the BJP’s West Bengal in-charge.
On 29 November, 2018, a rape complaint was reportedly filed by a woman in West Bengal against Vijayvargiya and two other BJP leaders, Pradeep Joshi and Jishnu Basu.
Along with the other BJP leaders booked in various cases, Vijayvargiya had approached the Supreme Court and sought protection from arrest. His counsel has maintained in court that Vijayvargiya was booked as he was visiting West Bengal for party-related work.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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