POLITICS
‘Mukhyamantri se bhi bada mahamantri hoon’ — Kailash Vijayvargiya rules himself out of MP CM race
- Admin
- Oct 14, 2023
‘Mukhyamantri se bhi bada mahamantri hoon’ — Kailash Vijayvargiya rules himself out of MP CM race
BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, now MP poll candidate, was removed last yr as Bengal in-charge. Says he asked to be removed due to 'false cases' filed against him by TMC.
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.
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 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, 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 “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.”
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 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, 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 “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.”
