{"id":166903,"date":"2013-07-18T19:05:14","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T13:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tehelka.com\/?p=166903"},"modified":"2013-07-18T19:05:14","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T13:35:14","slug":"will-the-house-be-called-to-order-lp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/will-the-house-be-called-to-order-lp\/","title":{"rendered":"Will The House Be Called To Order?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure id=\"attachment_166470\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-166470\" style=\"width: 216px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-166470  \" alt=\"Illustration: Vikram Nongmaithem\" src=\"http:\/\/www.tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Soupreme_court_illustration.jpg\" width=\"216\" height=\"311\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-166470\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Illustration:<\/strong> Vikram Nongmaithem<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nEveryone knows Raja Bhaiyya, the dreaded don from Uttar Pradesh who earned his first criminal case as a teenager and who has a symbiotic relationship with the prisons either as an inmate or as the minister tasked with running them. But ever heard of Bhaiyya Raja?<br \/>\nA two-term former MLA from the Kama Sutra town of \u00a0Khajuraho in Madhya Pradesh, 66-year-old Ashok Veer Vikram Singh aka Bhaiyya Raja has been an unchallenged don for decades. Arrested for murder in the 1990s, Bhaiyya Raja decided to fight his first election from prison. He won on a not-so-subtle slogan of\u00a0<em>Mohar lagegi haathi pe, varna goli chhaati pe<\/em>\u00a0(Stamp the elephant or take a bullet on your chest), the elephant being his election symbol. On winning, he rode an elephant to the Assembly.\u00a0<em>The Indian Mafia<\/em>, a 1991 book, alleged that he used pythons to terrorise women into sexual acts. It was rumoured that he bred crocodiles that grew fat on the flesh of his dead rivals. On 31 May, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2009 murder of a grandniece who he sexually exploited and forced to undergo an abortion. Is his political career over? Yes and no. Bhaiyya Raja\u2019s wife, Asha Rani, is still a\u00a0<a title=\"Posts tagged with BJP\" href=\"http:\/\/www.tehelka.com\/tag\/bjp\/\" rel=\"tag\">BJP<\/a>\u00a0MLA, though she is accused of abetting a woman\u2019s suicide at her home six years ago. She is currently free on bail.<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #800000;\"><a href=\"\/will-the-house-be-called-to-order-2\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>Read More&gt;<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span><br \/>\n[egpost postid=&#8221;166399&#8243;]<br \/>\n[egpost postid=&#8221;166874&#8243;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Supreme Court has struck a blow against criminals in politics. But evildoers will continue to hold sway unless political parties reform themselves, says Ajit Sahi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":166707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[56],"tags":[8140],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166903"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}