BJP leader H. Raja sentenced to six-month imprisonment for derogatory social media posts

Senior BJP leader H. Raja was convicted and sentenced to six months of imprisonment in two separate cases booked against him in 2018 in connection with his posts on the social media platform X, in which he threatened to demolish the statues of Dravidian ideologue Periyar and made a veiled and defamatory reference to DMK MP K. Kanimozhi. In one of the cases, the prosecution alleged that Mr. Raja, being the national secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party, had posted a derogatory message on his X handle, stating that the statues of Periyar must be demolished in Tamil Nadu the same way that the statues of Communist leader Vladimir Lenin were razed in Tripura. Defamatory statement Another case was booked by the Erode Town police against Mr. Raja following a complaint by P. Selvaraj, former Minister and a senior functionary of the DMK, for publishing a defamatory statement on X against DMK leader and former Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, while making a veiled reference to his daughter and DMK MP Kanimozhi. Delivering the judgement, the Assistant Sessions Judge held that the prosecution established disturbance to public peace and insult to the modesty of a woman in the case, and convicted Mr. Raja under three sections.