Delhi elections: Tajinder Bagga steps out of Twitter shadows to political mainstream

A Delhi BJP spokesperson since 2017, Bagga had been seeking a ticket from Tilak Nagar but in vain, party sources said. It was only when the Shiromani Akali Dal snapped ties with BJP in Delhi that Bagga’s fortunes turned. Within seconds of the post-midnight announcement, he had posted a rap song on Twitter — ‘Bagga, Bagga Har Jagah’ — to “thank” everyone.

Thanks everyone pic.twitter.com/3jqhAFUOEN

— Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga (@TajinderBagga) January 20, 2020

Bagga, who started his political career with the relatively unknown Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena (BSKS), has 6.5 lakh followers on Twitter, where he is often called out for posting virulent, fake or misleading tweets. Most recently, he had rallied his followers to boycott Deepika Padukone’s Chhapaak after her JNU visit.

In 2011, he barged into India Habitat Centre and disrupted the launch of author Arundhati Roy’s book, calling her work “anti-Army and pro-Kashmir azadi”. He had also heckled Separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani at an event in 2012. His outfit also defaced walls around the Pakistan High Commission and pasted posters demanding freedom for Balochistan.

In 2015, his Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena launched an online news and opinion blog, NaMo Patrika, dedicated to PM Narendra Modi. The same year, he was on the team of BJP’s social media influencers who got a chance to meet Modi at his official residence. Two years later, he was appointed as the party spokesperson ahead of the MCD polls.

“I’ve always taken stand for the country. I sat on a hunger strike for eight days to get justice for the December 2012 rape victim and another hunger strike to demand action against culprits of the 1984 Sikh massacre,” he said.

Party insiders said his “currency within the BJP increased” after he went to West Bengal in 2019 and was among the BJP workers detained by the West Bengal police.