Kailash Vijayvargiya lies low after Poha remark backfires

BJP national secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, who is being massively trolled on social media for making a bizarre connection between Bangladeshi intruders and the popular snack Poha (flattened rice), stayed away from the party’s state-wide protest against anti-mafia operations being carried out by the Kamal Nath government on Friday.

While all other party leaders including former Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan courted arrest as part of the protest in Indore, Kailash Vijayvargiya, the tallest BJP leader of the city, was absent. The senior BJP leader also avoided clarifying his controversial claim.

Also read — Vijayvargiya's 'poha' remark exposes BJP's real intent on NPR, wants to profile people on basis of food: Congress

Vijayvargiya, during a seminar on the support of the CAA in Indore on Thursday, claimed a few labourers who recently carried out construction work at his house could be Bangladeshis, as they had “strange” eating habits.

Also read — Eating Poha? BJP leader may call you Bangladeshi

“When a new room was being added at my house recently, I found eating habits of some of the workers ‘strange’ as they were eating only ‘poha’ (flattened rice). I suspected these workers were residents of Bangladesh. Two days after I became suspicious, they stopped working at my house. I have not filed any police complaint yet. I only mentioned this incident to warn people,” he had said.

BJP sources said the party high command has asked Vijayvargiya to exercise restraint and not react to trolling in the social media or to the Opposition leaders’ barbs on this issue. Two days ago, during a BJP protest in Rajgarh district against a lady collector, Nidhi Nivedita, Vijayvargiya had termed her JNU alumni and threatened to weed out JNU virus from Madhya Pradesh. However, she was, in fact, a Delhi university student.