Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga has, once again, stolen the spotlight.
The BJP leader was arrested from his Delhi residence by the Punjab Police on Friday, 6 May, after he allegedly issued death threats to Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) National Convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
After a series of events involving police officers of Punjab, Haryana, and Delhi, Bagga returned to Delhi in the evening, a few hours after being arrested.
You can read about the controversy in full here.
This is not, however, the first time that Bagga has raked up such a boiling controversy. So, who is Tajinder Bagga? How did he rise to fame? What are some of his most controversial moments?
Who is Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga?
The 36-year-old BJP leader, according to his Twitter bio, is a national secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the BJP.
He is also in charge of the youth wing of the Uttarakhand BJP, and a spokesperson for the Delhi BJP.
In the 2020 Delhi Vidhan Sabha elections, Bagga had contested from Hari Nagar but lost to Rajkumari Dillon of the Aam Aadmi Party.
He has a huge Twitter following, with more than 9,00,000 followers. In fact, he was, in 2015, he was part of the #Super150, which was a gathering of social media influencers hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his official residence in the backdrop of the Digital India launch.
Rise to Fame
Bagga's earliest claim to fame was when he launched ‘Operation Prashant Bhushan’ in October 2011.
He was behind the attack in which a member of the Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena attacked Bhushan in his office and repeatedly slapped, punched, and kicked the lawyer in the face, and even tore his shirt while abusing him for his “separatist” remarks.
He had tweeted after the attack – “He try to break my Nation, I try to break his head. Hisab chukta. Congrats to all. Operation Prashant Bhushan successful [sic].”
Other Controversies
Bagga again made headlines in 2011 when he barged into an event at Delhi’s India Habitat Centre and disrupted the book launch of author Arundhati Roy’s, calling her works “anti-Army and pro-Kashmir azaadi”.
He even tweeted about it proudly seven years later.
The following year, he was accused of heckling Syed Ali Shah Geelani at an event organised by the Centre for Study of Developing Studies in Delhi.
He also sold tea outside the headquarters of the Congress Party to protest against Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's remarks against Narendra Modi.
Apart from these antics, he also has a track record for spreading fake news. One instance is when, in the wake of CAA protests in Mumbai, Bagga on 5 January, posted a video on Twitter, falsely claiming that “Muslim and Leftists students in Mumbai again Raised Slogans ‘Hinduo se Aazadi’”.
Additionally, his group has defaced walls around the Pakistan High Commission, with posters demanding Balochistan's independence.
He even ordered footwear online and got it delivered to the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi to protest against the “ill- treatment” meted out to the mother and the wife of former navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav, who is lodged in a jail in Pakistan.
Bagga also once put up a massive poster of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi outside the BJP headquarters, with the words, "The father of mob lynching".
Other Endeavours
Bagga is also a businessman and he runs an online store called "T-Shirt Bhaiyya", that sells illustrated T-shirts, kurtas, jackets, and even home decorations and jewellery.
He has plans to open a new business called : "Kulhad Biryani: India's First Jhatka Biryani Brand", which will act as a counterweight to Halal meat (preferred by most Muslims).
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