Bhopal: Senior BJP leader Kailash Vijaywargiya yesterday stoked a controversy when he termed the Vyapam scam as a "small incident" even as the CBI took over the probe into the massive admission and recruitment scandal which has rocked Madhya Pradesh.
"For us it (Vyapam) is a chutput (small) incident. It may be big for you," Vijaywargiya, the national general secretary of BJP, told reporters here.
He was interacting with the media on the BJP's "Maha-jansampark campaign" or mega membership drive.
Earlier, BJP president Amit Shah arrived here to address the party leaders and ministers from Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh on 'Mahajansampark campaign'.
Vijaywargiya said BJP workers will start contacting newly-enrolled members personally for verification as part of the party's door-to-door mass contact programme. Congress workers staged a protest over the Vyapam scam near the venue but the police prevented them from reaching Samanvay Bhawan where the BJP meeting was held.
Responding to a query on tips given by the BJP leaders to the party workers whose morale is apparently down in the wake of the Supreme Court handing over the probe into the scam to the CBI, the former minister snapped, "Those whose morale is down should have concern for it. Our morale is not down on the issue."
Vijaywargiya had recently triggered a row after the death of TV journalist Akshay Singh, who was investigating the unnatural deaths in the scam, by reportedly saying, "Is a journalist bigger than me?” He later denied making such a statement.
Last week, another BJP leader and Union law minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda had called the Vyapam Scam ‘silly'.
"See, the PM need not answer on silly issues," Gowda was quoted as saying while reacting to the demands of PM's statement on the Vyapam scam.
However, he later clarified that he did not called the scam that has so far taken over 40 lives silly but referred to Lalt Modi scandal.
