T. Raja Singh

Thakur Raja Singh (born 15 April 1977), popularly known as Tiger Raja Singh, is an Indian politician from the state of Telangana. He is the incumbent MLA of the Telangana Legislative Assembly representing the Goshamahal Assembly constituency in Hyderabad.

Singh had served as the party whip for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the state of Telangana. He was suspended from the party on 23 August 2022 for his remarks on Muhammad, during the 2022 Muhammad remarks controversy, but his suspension was revoked on 22 October 2023, so that he could participate in the assembly elections. He is one of the most controversial politicians in India, with more than 105 criminal cases registered against him, of which 18 were related to communal offences.

Personal life
T. Raja Singh was born to T. Naval Singh and hails from Goshamahal, Hyderabad. He is married to T. Usha. He has three sons and one daughter. Many members of the Lodhi community had migrated to Hyderabad from North India during the Nizam period.

For the 2023 Telangana Legislative Assembly election, he self-declared 83 criminal cases and assets of ₹4.7 crore.

Political Career
In his early thirties, Singh was close to Mukesh Goud, the Goshamahal MLA from the Congress party, and Mettu Vaikuntam, the BJP corporator from Goshamahal. These connections helped him gain a following in Goshamahal. With Goud’s help, Singh was also involved in the Congress Party’s youth wing for some time.

Singh started his political career in 2009 with the Telugu Desam Party and was elected as the representative from Mangalhat to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) until 2014. It was a stronghold of the Indian National Congress before his arrival.

He joined the BJP ahead of the 2014 Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly election, on the insistence of Mettu Vaikuntam, and won the election for the Goshamahal Assembly constituency with a margin of 46,793 against Mukesh Goud.

In 2018, he was re-elected to the Telangana Legislative Assembly from the same constituency with a margin of 17,734 against the Bharat Rashtra Samithi candidate Prem Singh Rathore.

Since his joining the BJP in 2014, he has left the party thrice on the grounds that the BJP has not been doing enough for the Hindus and more so for cow protection. Intelligence officials have claimed that he is one of the main men in the "Sriram Yuva Sena", a pro-hindutva organisation from the days of United Andhra Pradesh, consisting mainly of gau-rakshaks. The group emerged for a while after his suspension from the BJP for his controversial remarks against Prophet Muhammad.

In October 2023, following the revocation of his suspension, he was fielded as the BJP candidate in the 2023 Telangana Legislative Assembly elections, and won the seat for the third time in a row.

Controversies
In April 2010, he was arrested on charge of fanning communal clashes in Hyderabad.

In 2012, when he was the Mangalhat representative for GHMC, Hyderabad Police nabbed him for theft and other crimes. They claimed he had knowingly purchased and had been using a stolen Toyota Qualis that belonged to the Government of Kerala for the past two years. It had been registered using fake documents, against a registration number that belonged to a TVS Champ two-wheeler. His close associates alleged that the arrest was influenced by other political parties

In 2017, Singh was embroiled in various alleged hate speech controversies, including his remarks in May 2017 where he called the Old City area in Hyderabad "mini Pakistan." In July 2017, he appealed to the Hindu community in West Bengal to respond in a manner similar to the 2002 Gujarat riots. He has also repeatedly called for the establishment of a Hindu Rashtra by armed means.

In June 2018, Singh called for a Quran ban. He is known for his vocal anti-Muslim views, which includes calling them traitors and backing the shooting of Rohingya people. In a video message, he said that 'illegal' Rohingya Muslims and Bangladeshis should be shot dead if they didn't leave the country respectfully, and labelled them as pests. In 2023, during Shiv Jayanti, in Shrirampur, Ahmad Nagar district, he made remarks against Muslims which led to a riot. On 2 September 2020, Facebook labelled Singh as a "dangerous individual" and banned him from all Facebook platforms.

Amid the 2022 Muhammad remarks controversy, Singh was arrested by the Hyderabad Police on 23 August 2022, hours after his comments about Muhammad sparked protests in the city. He was subsequently suspended from BJP for violating party norms. He was released on bail the same evening but later arrested again on 25 August 2022. In October 2023, the BJP revoked his suspension ahead of the assembly elections in Telangana.

He was booked multiple times for violating the Model Code of Conduct during the 2024 Indian general elections, by allegedly singing Islamophobic songs during an unauthorised rally in Afzal Gunj on 2024-04-18, and for conducting a rally beyond the permitted time in Khanapur on 8 May 2024.

In June 2024, he threatened comedian Daniel Fernandes for making jokes against Jains. Daniel had to cancel his show in Hyderabad after these threats.