Nov. 4: BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, who accused Shah Rukh Khan of treason and today retracted the statement, had received an award for maintaining communal harmony from the UPA government in 2006.
As a senior minister in the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in Madhya Pradesh, Vijayvargiya was given the Indira Gandhi Award for Communal Riots Prevention and Harmony for quelling communal disturbance in Dhar.
He had been deputed by Chouhan to hold namaaz in Dhar Bhojshala, a monument claimed by both Hindus and Muslims in an "Ayodhya-like" dispute, in spite of strong protests from the Bajrang Dal, VHP and RSS cadre. Police used lathicharge and teargas shells to disperse the mob. The Bajrang Dal and Hindu Jagran Manch officials had then accused Vijayvargiya and Chouhan of neglecting "Hindu sentiments".
Vijayvargiya, who held charge of the public works department then, was among 16 award recipients whose names had been recommended to the Centre by the Chouhan government. The remaining 15 were police and administration officials who had been part of the Dhar operation. He received a cash award of Rs 15,000 and a citation.
The BJP leader, who is known to be close to party chief Amit Shah, had yesterday lashed out at Shah Rukh for suggesting there was extreme intolerance in India. Vijayvarigya had tweeted that the actor was "anti-national" and that he "lives in Hindustan but his soul is in Pakistan".
Today Vijayvargiya claimed he had been "misunderstood". "I didn't intent to hurt anyone. I take back my tweets," he said. He tweeted: "Shah Rukh wouldn't have been the most popular actor after Amitabh (Bachchan) had India been intolerant. My tweets were misunderstood by some."
A former mayor of Indore, Vijayvargiya is seen as an arch-rival of Chouhan and a claimant to the chief minister's post in Madhya Pradesh politics. Each time Chouhan's name has cropped up in any scandal, Vijayvargiya's supporters have positioned their leader as the likely successor.
But Vijayvargiya himself is no stranger to controversy or allegations of corruption. His name has regularly featured in many land scams in Indore. Before the 2013 Assembly elections, he was caught on camera purportedly giving cash to voters. Days after the December 2012 Delhi bus gang rape, Vijayvargiya had said that any woman crossing the " laxmanrekha" faced the possibility of getting abducted like Sita.
Reputed to be highly ambitious, the BJP general secretary is seen as a politician in the Pramod Mahajan and Sharad Pawar mould. For the past five years, he has been trying to defeat Jyotiraditya Scindia in the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association (MPCA). He lost to Scindia in 2010 and again in 2014.
Recently Vijayvargiya's group boycotted the one-day international against South Africa that was played in Indore, accusing Scindia of high-handedness in issuing complimentary tickets to association members.
