INDORE/RAIPUR: A 1999 Chhattisgarh court case could cast a shadow on BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, who is the BJP candidate for Indore-1 constituency in the 2023 Madhya Pradesh assembly election.A judicial magistrate first class (JMFC) court in Durg, Chhattisgarh, had declared Vijayvargiya an absconder and issued a permanent arrest warrant in 2019 when he allegedly did not respond to repeated notices in a criminal defamation case.Senior advocate Kanak Tiwari, a former advocate general of Chhattisgarh, is the complainant in the case. After Vijayvargiya filed his nomination papers to contest the assembly elections, his first in 10 years, the old court orders popped up on social media. When TOI asked Vijayvargiya on Sunday about the complaint by Tiwari in the Durg court, he said, I know him. He is a Congress leader. I dont know about the case. I havent received any summons.In the affidavit filed by Vijayvargiya with his nomination on Monday, there is no mention of any pending case in Chhattisgarh. He mentions five pending cases in West Bengal.Tiwari said: I was the chairman of the housing board of the erstwhile Madhya Pradesh from 1995 to 1998. In late 1998, three employees at the boards Indore office alleged that I had demanded a bribe from them, saying that Id otherwise take action against them. The truth is that I had already suspended them and initiated departmental action against them about a month and a half prior to this. There was no need to talk to them. These employees tried to meet me but I refused. As their allegations were published in newspapers, I sent my response to the newspapers, contradicting the charges, which they published. However, Vijayvargiya and some others issued a statement in the media, accusing him of corruption, he said. I sent them a notice, saying that I would initiate legal proceedings unless they apologized, he said.They are prominent politicians. They did not apologize. As soon as my tenure ended, I returned to my hometown Durg in 1999 where I filed a criminal defamation case against them. For 20 years, the court tried to summon them, and warrants were issued, but they did not appear. Finally, in November 2019, the court declared them absconders and issued permanent warrants, Tiwari said. He said that he had complained to the Lokayukta as well, but there was no investigation. I am not aware of whether Vijayvargiya mentioned the details of this case in his election affidavit, he added.

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