New Delhi, March 11: Vijay Mallya let loose a midnight flurry of tweets questioning the "media trial" billing him an "absconder", then returned to form 12 hours later seemingly unfazed by the political sparring back home over his sudden departure from India.

This evening, the flamboyant businessman known as the "King of Good Times" was re-tweeting about football and Mohun Bagan, Formula One racing, and his Kunigal Stud Farm "officially" becoming the "number one" in the business, as if he had not a care in the world.

There was a re-tweet also on Sri Sri Ravi Shankar welcoming Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the World Culture Festival.

Yet when he had earlier broken his silence on the controversy over his departure, Mallya was matter-of-fact and scathing. "I am an international businessman. I travel to and from India frequently. I did not flee from India and neither am I an absconder. Rubbish," he tweeted.

After an hour, he returned to Twitter to say: "As an Indian MP I fully respect and will comply with the law of the land. Our judicial system is sound and respected. But no trial by media."

Then the onslaught on the media unfolded.

"Let media bosses not forget help, favours, accommodation that I have provided over several years which are documented. Now lies to gain TRP?... Once a media witch hunt starts it escalates into a raging fire where truth and facts are burnt to ashes."

Mallya also questioned news reports that he must declare his assets.

"Does that mean that Banks did not know my assets or look at my Parliamentary disclosures?" said the businessman, who is facing legal proceedings for alleged loan defaults of Rs 9,000 crore by his group.

Several Rajya Sabha MPs quipped that they had never before heard their fellow member speak so much on any issue.

"I have never heard him speak in the Rajya Sabha in the six years we have been in the House together," said BJP member Prabhat Jha.

Jha had in 2010 returned Mallya's Diwali gift of dry fruits, whisky and a Kingfisher calendar with a seven-page letter.

"I told him not to try to buy off MPs like this. Had he sent a Kingfisher Airlines ticket, it's something I could have accepted as a social worker," Jha told The Telegraph.

"I also told him that you may have come to the Rajya Sabha because of your money but I have come here because of my hard work."

Having publicly distanced himself from Mallya, a two-time Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka, Jha appeared comfortable enough to go on record about the businessman - which few others among his fellow MPs appeared prepared to do.

Mallya had become a bit of a lonely figure after his troubles began, several MPs pointed out. But some still spoke up for him.

"His flamboyance and arrogance have done him in. The government wants to make him the poster boy for the consequences of defrauding banks but the objective seems to have been defeated when he left the country under its watch," an MP said.

Mallya would not have made it to the Rajya Sabha without support from the Congress and the BJP, which are now trading charges over his departure.

In 2002, the Congress backed his candidature. Then Karnataka chief minister S.M. Krishna's younger daughter, Shambavi, is married to Mallya's stepbrother Umesh Hingorani.

Mallya won with the Congress's surplus votes and support from Independents, the Janata Dal United and the Janata Dal Secular.

Since that Rajya Sabha election, this particular seat has been known as the "global bidding seat".

Mallya had sought re-election on completion of his term in 2008 but the Janata Dal Secular would not play ball. In 2010, there was a rethink in the party and the BJP too played along following an intervention from its central leadership.

Mallya was not without friends in other parties. Stories abound about him ferrying MPs on his chartered flight to Mumbai or Bangalore on the days he chose to grace Parliament.

A senior politician with an interest in sartorial styles recalls Mallya coming to Parliament in what looked like black kurta-pyjamas. Of course, it was a Versace.

Some believe that Mallya inherited his knack for dabbling in politics from father Vittal Mallya, who enjoyed the patronage of former chief minister Ramakrishna Hegde.

"The only difference is that Vittal Mallya was known as the 'King of Sick Industries' -he took over such companies and turned them around," a source from Karnataka said.