New Delhi: The BJP Sunday revoked the suspension of its MLA T Raja Singh and named him as its candidate from Goshamahal for the 30 November Telangana assembly polls.
The controversial MLA was suspended by the BJP and arrested by the Telangana police last year over his alleged derogatory remarks on the Prophet Muhammad.
On Sunday, a party press release stated that the BJP disciplinary committee had revoked T Raja’s suspension “after due consideration of his explanation in response to the show cause notice served by the party”. Soon after, T Raja found mention in the BJP’s first list of candidates for Telangana polls released the same day.
A senior BJP leader had told ThePrint Saturday: “Goshamahal is surrounded by constituencies represented by AIMIM (All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen) and Raja continuously attacked AIMIM. His Hindutva credentials are known across the country. His candidature will polarise the election at least in a few surrounding seats of Hyderabad. Revoking his suspension was discussed during the Friday core group meeting.”
T Raja has had several criminal cases lodged against him, most of them for hate speech. In January this year, he reportedly urged Hindus to boycott goods from shops run by members of the Muslim community. An FIR was lodged against him in connection with this in March.
In July, former Lok Sabha MP and senior party leader M.Vijayashanthi had urged the party leadership to lift the suspension of T Raja. Even former Telangana BJP president Bandi Sanjay had requested the party high command to take a decision in favour of T Raja, party sources told ThePrint.
Last year, he was arrested by the Hyderabad police for allegedly making objectionable comments about the Muslim community and the Prophet while taking a dig at Munawar Faruqui, a Muslim stand-up comedian, in a YouTube video.
In 2020, Facebook, now Meta, banned him for violating its policy on hate speech.
Last month, Raja was in the news for his verbal attack on Tamil Nadu minister Udhayanidhi Stalin over his comment that Sanatana (Dharma) was “against social justice and equality”, was like “corona, malaria, dengue”, and should be “eradicated”.
Raja said that Hindutva followers should decide whether they would teach Udhayanidhi — son of Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin — a lesson “by defeating him in an election or by physically assaulting him with laat and ghoonse (kicks and punches)”.
The suspended MLA has this year also attended several rallies conducted by Sakal Hindu Samaj Morcha, a right-wing outfit.
In March, he was booked by the police in Maharashtra’s Dadar for an alleged hate speech delivered at one such rally, in which he demanded a law against religious conversions and allegedly called for violence against Muslims.
The same month, he was also booked for another speech in Shrirampur, in which he reportedly said that if any member of the minority community was found involved in “love jihad”, he would “cut them into pieces”.
At the same rally, he said that Hindus and Muslims could never be brothers. “Chhatrapati Shivaji and Aurangzeb were not brothers, neither were Veer Maharana Pratap and Akbar,” he was quoted as saying.
In Aurangabad later, he called for attacks on those found promoting “love jihad”.
“Want to stop “love jihad”, want to shoot them… take your team whenever you come to know about them. First, request the administration for help and if they do not help, then complete the work on those who are already cut in half (circumcised),” he reportedly said at a rally held in March.
Why did BJP suspend Raja?
Raja, 46, started his political career with the Telugu Desam Party as a Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation councillor in 2009. After Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014, he joined the BJP and became the MLA of Goshamahal constituency in Hyderabad old city that year.
The Hyderabad police describe him as a “habitual offender delivering provocative and inflammatory speeches driving a wedge between communities leading to public disorder”.
In August 2022, the Hyderabad police arrested Raja, invoking the Preventive Detention Act, after he posted a purportedly offensive video on YouTube titled ‘Faruqui K Aaka Itihaas Suniye’.
The police claimed that the video was against the Prophet Mohammed, “venerated by Muslims” and posted with an intention to provoke all sections of society and “thereby cause breach of peace and public tranquility”.
Though the video was removed, protests spread in the Muslim-dominated and communally-sensitive areas of the old city.
Like in the case of former party spokesperson Nupur Sharma, the BJP suspended Raja with immediate effect. The party’s central disciplinary committee gave him 10 days’ time to show cause as to why he should not be expelled.
Raja said that his video was in response to Faruqui’s show in Hyderabad city that was allowed by the Telangana government and the police.
He also alleged that “according to the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen’s (AIMIM) directions, the (ruling) Bharat Rashtra Samithi government had filed a false case against him”.
This is an updated version of the report.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
Also Read: ‘Beat him in polls or with kicks & punches?’ — suspended BJP leader Raja Singh on Udhayanidhi