Indore water contamination crisis adds to Kailash Vijayvargiya’s long list of controversies

Kailash Vijayvargiya is a BJP veteran and currently a minister in the Mohan Yadav-led Cabinet.

Senior BJP leader and Madhya Pradesh minister Kailash Vijayvargiya, who has repeatedly landed in trouble over objectionable remarks in the past, is once again at the centre of a row for making comments linked to the ongoing Indore water contamination incident that has left at least seven people dead and more than a hundred hospitalised.

The BJP leader sparked a political storm after using an inappropriate word on camera when a journalist questioned him about the contamination. A toilet constructed directly above a main drinking water pipeline near a police outpost in Vijayvargiya’s Indore-1 Assembly constituency, without a mandatory safety tank, resulted in sewage mixing with potable water, according to the administration.

Vijayvargiya, who holds crucial portfolios including Urban Development, Housing and Parliamentary Affairs in the Mohan Yadav government, snapped at the reporter, saying, “Don’t ask a worthless (fokat) question.” With the reporter pressing for answers, Vijayvargiya, in the video which has gone viral, is heard using the word “ghanta”, a slang term commonly used to dismiss something as “nonsense” or “rubbish”. The journalist is also heard asking the minister to maintain decorum in his language.

The incident is the latest in a long list of controversies involving the BJP leader. In October 2025, Vijayvargiya drew criticism for comments on the molestation of two Australian women cricketers in Indore. He said the players should have informed authorities before stepping out of their hotel and termed the incident a “lesson” for both officials and the cricketers. Emphasising the popularity of cricketers in India, he remarked that players should inform security or local administration before venturing out in public.

In September last year, Vijayvargiya stoked controversy after he said the Leader of Opposition — in an apparent reference to Rahul Gandhi — is “someone who lacks culture” because he “kisses his sister in public”. “Today, our Opposition leader is such that he kisses his younger sister right in public. I want to ask you, is there anyone among you who has kissed their young daughter or young sister in public? This is a lack of values and culture. These values are from foreign culture. If India is to be run, it will run on the basis of our country’s values).” The remarks had drawn a backlash from the Congress, which sought his apology.

In August last year, Vijayvargiya described India’s Independence achieved on August 15, 1947, as a “kati-fati (fragmented)” freedom. Speaking during Independence Day celebrations in Indore, he spoke of his vision of an “Akhand Bharat (undivided India)” and claimed that a day would come when the Tricolour would be hoisted in Islamabad, fulfilling the dream of a “complete and unified India”.

In April 2023, when serving as BJP general secretary, he triggered outrage by saying at a religious event in Indore that girls wearing “bad or skimpy clothes” resemble ‘Shurpanakha’, a character in the Ramayana.

In June 2025, he again criticised women wearing “skimpy clothes”, calling it a foreign idea of beauty inconsistent with Indian traditions. Claiming that he viewed women as a “form of a goddess”, the BJP leader said, “If a girl in India wears decent and beautiful clothes, applies good makeup and adorns herself with jewellery, she is considered very attractive. But abroad, wearing less clothing is seen as good. That is their way of thinking,” Vijayvargiya said.

In June 2019, Vijayvargiya’s son Akash, the MLA from Indore-3 at the time, was arrested over allegations that he hit an Indore Municipal Corporation officer with a bat during an anti-encroachment drive. The video of the incident had gone viral. The case had put the BJP, which was in the Opposition at the time in Madhya Pradesh, on the back foot as the Kamal Nath-led Congress government promised to convict Akash. In the 2023 Assembly elections, Akash was not fielded from Indore-3 and had to make way for his father. Akash was exonerated in September 2024 after the civic body official told the court during cross-examination that he was engrossed in his phone and so couldn’t see who hit him with the bat. As a result, he could not “speak to the authenticity of the photos/videos” of the incident, he said.