Raghuraj Pratap Singh more commonly known as Raja Bhaiya is an Indian politician. He belongs to Bhadri family Oudh of Kunda, Uttar Pradesh. He was an Independent Member of Legislative Assembly, having been elected fifth time in a row from Kunda in the Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly election, 2012.
Background
Raghuraj was born to Raja Uday Pratap Singh in 1967. His grandfather Raja Bajrang Bahadur Singh was the founder vice chancellor of Pant Nagar Agriculture University and later the second governor of Himachal Pradesh state.Raghuraj was the first in his family to enter politics; his father is largely a recluse.
Education
Raghuraj completed his primary education from Mahaprabhu Bal Vidayalaya Narayni Asram Shivkuti, Allahabad, high school from Bharat Scout H.S. School in the year 1985.
Raghuraj completed his intermediate from Colonel Ganj Inter College Allahabad in the year 1987, and law graduation at Lucknow University.
Career
He contested and won the state elections from the Kunda seat in 1993, as an Independent. He was officially 26 years old, but was possibly underage at the time.
In the Indian general election, 1999, he put up Akshay Pratap Singh against the incumbent Ratna Singh. It is in this election that Raghuraj started using strongarm and criminal intimidation tactics. In the years 1997, 1999 and 2000, he was made minister in the BJP governments of Kalyan Singh, Ram Prakash Gupta and Rajnath Singh respectively. For the 2004 elections, he changed his stand and began supporting Samajwadi Party which made him minister in the 2004 Mulayam Singh Yadav government and the 2012 Akhilesh Yadav government. In March 2013, he had to resign from the Akhilesh Yadav cabinet after he was booked for the murder of Deputy Superintendent of Police Zia-ul-Haque.
Within 25 minutes of the Mulayam Singh Yadav's government coming to power in 2003, all POTA charges against him were dropped. However, the Supreme Court debarred the state government from dismissing POTA charges.
Eventually the POTA act was repealed in 2004, and although the court again refused to release Raghuraj, he subsequently became a powerful man in the government, and was accused by police officer R.S. Pandey (who led the raid on his house) of having launched a vendetta against him. Eventually R.S. Pandey was killed in a road accident, which is currently being investigated by the CBI.
In 2005, he became the minister for Food and Civil Supplies, and despite his pending criminal cases, he came to be assigned the highest level of security (Z-category) provided by the state,though the threats against him were not specified.
In the, Uttar Pradesh state elections, 2007, he was overwhelmingly elected from Kunda with a margin of nearly half the votes cast over Shiv Prakash Mishra of the Bahujan Samaj Party. He had stood as an Independent, supported by the Samajwadi Party. He also wields considerable influence over five assembly constituencies in the Pratapgarh region, as well as some in neighbouring Bihar. In election rallies in this region where he is present, the actual candidate may never speak or even be mentioned in his speech; "they are all shadows. Raja Bhaiya, alone, is the substance."