Giriraj Singh salutes colleagues as he heads take oath at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Sunday. (Source: Express photo by Neeraj Priyadarshi)

New Delhi: Giriraj Singh, 63, of the BJP, who was made a Minister of State for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises today, faces criminal charges for allegedly delivering a hate speech and is out on bail. Mr Singh is a first-time MP from Nawada in Bihar.

Giriraj Singh hit the headlines this July when he said that his house had been burgled of Rs 50,000. The burglar was caught and Rs 1.14 crores recovered from him, that Singh insisted was not his. He has also been booked for hate speech while campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections where he insisted that those who did not support Narendra Modi for Prime Minister should “go to Pakistan.” He followed these remarks with, “Pakistan is the hurdle in Narendra Modi’s path of becoming PM, and there are some people in India who are pro-Modi. Some are pro-terrorism and their political Mecca-Madina is Pakistan. These people should be in Pakistan, not India.”

More recently he again stated, “”Isn’t it true that all people caught in terrorist activities belong to one community? I am not trying to blame any one particular community. Why are all so-called secular parties silent on this?” PM Modi had warned at the time of “irresponsible statements” without naming Singh who has now found a place in the Cabinet.

Congress on Sunday took potshots at Narendra Modi’s ministry expansion saying the inclusion of BJP leader Giriraj Singh was a “crisp slap” by the Prime Minister to secularism.

The party said that the expansion was “far more” of caste, geography and less on merit.

Priyanka Chaturvedi, a Congress leader and panelist tweeted, “Am certain the way things are going Giriraj Singh will take charge as MoS MEA, to facilitate all Modi haters to move to Pakistan. Strategic.”

On the cabinet reshuffle, senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh tweeted, “Why so much excitement about Cabinet Expansion? Modi doesn’t require a Cabinet. His is a ONE MAN CABINET ! Ask Rajnath Ji and Gadkari Ji!”

Singhvi also said, “The Sunday shuffle, if numerically analysed, has far more of caste & geography & far less of merit. To be fair, Cong also sometimes did same”.