Lucknow: Controversial Uttar Pradesh minister Raja Bhaiya has been booked for the murder of a Deputy Superintendent of police. Two of his aides have been arrested based on the police officer's wife's complaint. She also said he was shielding one of his associates.
Who is Raja Bhaiya? What does politics have to do with the ups and downs of his career? Raghu Raj Pratap Singh, famously known as Raja Bhaiya was sworn in as a minister in UP for the second time in 2012. For a man, who till March 2012, had 48 criminal cases pending against himself, his meteoric rise has had all the elements of a Bollywood film.
His political career has been pulled in different directions by Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati over the past decade. A stint of Mayawati rule meant Raja Bhaiya had to go to jail and a stint of Mulayam Singh's SP rule meant him becoming a minister, a reflection of the deep Dalit-Thakur divide in UP.
In November 2002, Mayawati as the UP chief minister had slapped POTA charges against Raja Bhaiya on the basis of a complaint by an MLA. But in 2003, within half an hour of Mulayam Singh Yadav taking over as the chief minister, all charges against him were dropped.
In 2007 again when Mayawati became the chief minister of a full majority government, Raja Bhaiya had to cool his heels for almost a year in jail in UP. The script changed again in 2012 when Akhilesh Yadav took over as the Chief Minister and Raja Bhaiya became the minister for jail affairs itself.
But this is not the first time that Raja Bhaiya is finding himself under scrutiny for death of a policeman. In 2007, DSP Ram Shiromani Pandey, the investigating officer in the POTA case against Raja Bhaiya, died in a road accident on the eve of his approaching the Allahabad high court seeking action against him. Questions were raised, but nothing could be proven and Raja Bhaiya remained as powerful as ever.
Now with the incumbent Chief Minister facing the heat over deteriorating law and order in the state, another murder case being slapped against Raja Bhaiya could make things difficult both for Raja Bhaiya as well as Akhilesh Yadav.
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Raghuraj Pratap Singh, more commonly known as Raja Bhaiya (1969 - ) is an Indian criminal-politician and scion of the Bhadri dynasty (Oudh line[1]) of Kunda, Uttar Pradesh. He is under trial in 35 criminal cases[2] including several of murder, ...
Samajwadi Party (literally, Socialist Party) is a political party in India. It is based in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It describes itself as a democratic socialist party. It was founded on October 4, 1992.
The Samajwadi Party was one ...
Akhilesh Yadav is an Indian politician and the youngest chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. Akhilesh is the son of Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav and Malti Devi. First time he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Kannauj in a by-elect ...
A veteran politician, Mulayam is a post graduate in Arts from Agra University. He entered electoral politics in the 1960s and won his first election in 1967 to become an MLA in UP Assembly. He won UP Assembly elections in 1974, 1977, 1985, 198 ...
Kumari Mayawati is an Indian politician who is a former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. She heads the Bahujan Samaj Party, which represents the Bahujans or Dalits, the weakest strata of Indian society.
She completed four terms as Chief Minist ...
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