A. Raja Biography 
A. Raja is an Indian politician belonging to Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party of Tamil Nadu. He was elected as the member of the 15th Lok Sabha from Nilgiris Constituency. He was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in the year 1996. He was the minister of state from 1999 to 2003. He became a cabinet minister in 2004. He became the Union Cabinet Minister for Communications and Technology in 2007 until he was accused in the 2G spectrum scam. He had to resign his post in 2010.
He was born on 10th May 1963 in a Dalit family at Perambalur, Tamil Nadu. After getting his Bachelor of Science degree from Government Arts College at Musiri, he studied at Government Law College at Madurai and obtained his B. L. degree. Then he did M. L. in the Government Law College at Trichy.
He submitted his resignation to M. Karunanidhi, chief of the D. M. K. party on 17th October 2008 to show his protest against the killings of Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka. This act was a part of the mass resignation of the D. M. K. ministers who were the parts of the UPA central government at that time.
The alleged 2G spectrum scandal is the largest political corruption in the history of modern India. According to the allegation, the telecom bandwidth was undervalued and offered to a selected few instead of putting under a transparent auction system. As the allocation was not done as per the market prices, an FIR was filed by CBI. A. Raja was considered to be personally responsible for the sale of 2G spectrum at the rates of the year 2001 in the year 2008.
Though he initially refused to resign he could not escape the clutches and resigned on 14th November 2010. The reports against him were filed by CAG and CBI. His homes and offices were raided in January, 2011 by CBI. He was arrested on 2nd February 2011. He was sent to Tihar Jail under judicial custody.
Delhi court on 21st December 2017 acquitted all accused, including former Telecom Minister A. Raja and DMK Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi in the 2G spectrum allocation case.
Published: N/A
Updated: January 10, 2018
