Indore: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national secretary and in-charge of West Bengal Kailash Vijayvargiya is back in his hometown Indore after the saffron party's emphatic victory in the Lok Sabha elections.
A popular figure in Indore, Vijayvargiya’s reputation has significantly grown after he helped his party make deep inroads into the fortress of Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal.
A former Madhya Pradesh minister, Vijayvargiya was given a rousing welcome by his supporters on Tuesday. A Kisan Akrosh Rally was also held in the city to highlight the plight of farmers.
But a giant flex erected as part of the celebrations, showing Vijayvargiya strangling a leopard that bears Banerjee's face, has raised quite a few eyebrows. After objections by the local police, the organisers covered Banerjee’s face on the poster.
The BJP and the TMC are engaged in a bitter power struggle in Bengal — the state has continued to witness violence weeks after the Lok Sabha election results were announced. A number of deaths over political clashes have been reported from the state.
When asked about the state of affairs in Bengal, Vijayvargiya said Banerjee’s government was made of bombs and pistols, adding if the National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted raids in the homes of Trinamool leaders, it would recover caches of arms and ammunition.
When asked about Tuesday’s celebrations in Indore, Vijayvargiya later told News18 that the BJP was not putting up a show of strength but only making an attempt to mirror the state's realities to the Congress government.
On the BJP’s proposed agitation programme in Bengal on Wednesday, he said the party would continue its fight.
However, he declined to comment on the meeting between West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, clarifying that the BJP is not interested in bringing down the TMC government.
The Madhya Pradesh Congress, however, did not spare the chance to poke fun at the BJP over the poster.
Taking a dig at the old rivalry between former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Vijayvargiya, Congress’ media cell coordinator Narendra Saluja wrote on Twitter, “Not Mamata Banerjee, the real target is BJP’s tiger (Chouhan) who is persistently claiming that ‘tiger is still alive’.”
Ahead of Vijayvargiya’s arrival, the stage for Tuesday’s functions crashed and several BJP leaders, including Mayor Malini Gaud, escaped with minor injuries.