V. P. Singh
Vishwanath Pratap Singh (25 June 1931 – 27 November 2008) was an Indian politician who served as the prime minister of India from 1989 to 1990 and the Raja Bahadur of Manda.In the 1989 elections, the National Front, with the support of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), formed the government and Singh became the prime minister.During his tenure as prime minister, he implemented the Mandal Commission report for India's backward castes, which led to major protests against the act.Following his opposition to the Ram Rath Yatra, the BJP withdrew its support for the National Front, and his government lost the vote of no-confidence.Singh was born on 25 June 1931,[8] the third child of the Hindu Rajput Zamindar family[9][10] of Daiya, which is located on the banks of the Belan River in the Allahabad district.He received much favourable national publicity when he offered to resign following a self-professed failure to stamp out the problem, and again when he personally oversaw the surrender of some of the most feared dacoits of the area in 1983.[20] Singh was an upper caste man and had ruled the vote bank of upper-caste people in Uttar Pradesh for the Indian National Congress.[29][30][31] Singh was known as "Mr. Clean" because of his impeccable history and also because of his opposition for the corruption in Bofors deal, which lead the way for him to contest his own party to fight the 1989 Lok Sabha Election and become Prime Minister of India.[35] Singh has been on the list as one of the senior-most and most powerful leaders of the Indian National Congress and has held many important ministry positions such as Defence, External Affairs and Finance.Singh was appointed to the post of Finance Minister in the tenth Cabinet of India, where he oversaw the gradual relaxation of the License Raj (governmental regulation) as Gandhi had in mind.After a while, word began to spread that Singh possessed information about the Bofors defence deal (the infamous arms-procurement fraud) that could damage Gandhi's reputation.Chaudhary Devi Lal, a Jat leader from Haryana stood up and refused the nomination, and said that he would prefer to be an 'elder uncle' to the Government and that Singh should be Prime Minister.During this time, Janata Dal came to power in five Indian states under Om Prakash Chautala (Banarsi Das Gupta, Hukam Singh), Chimanbhai Patel, Biju Patnaik, Lalu Prasad Yadav, and Mulayam Singh Yadav, and the National Front constituents in two more NT Rama Rao, and Prafulla Kumar Mahanta.Singh decided to end the Indian army's unsuccessful operation in Sri Lanka which Rajiv Gandhi, his predecessor, had sent to combat the Tamil separatist movement.[57][58] In Punjab, Singh replaced the hard-line Siddhartha Shankar Ray as Governor with another former bureaucrat, Nirmal Kumar Mukarji, who moved forward on a timetable for fresh elections.Singh himself made a much-publicised visit to the Golden Temple to ask forgiveness for Operation Blue Star and the combination of events caused the long rebellion in Punjab to die down markedly in a few months.[63] His government agreed to the demand for releasing militants in exchange; partly to end the storm of criticism that followed, he shortly thereafter appointed Jagmohan Malhotra, a former bureaucrat, as Governor of Jammu and Kashmir.[72] The objectives of the Act clearly emphasised the intention of the government to deliver justice to these communities through proactive efforts to enable them to live in society with dignity and self-esteem and without fear or violence or suppression from the dominant castes.[73] Singh himself wished to move forward nationally on social justice-related issues, which would, in addition, consolidate the caste coalition that supported the Janata Dal in northern India, and accordingly decided to implement the recommendations of the Mandal Commission which suggested that a fixed quota of all jobs in the public sector be reserved for members of the historically disadvantaged called Other Backward Classes.The party president, LK Advani, with Pramod Mahajan as aide, toured the northern states on a rath – a bus converted to look like a mythical chariot – with the intention of drumming up support.[88] Before he could complete the tour by reaching the disputed site in Ayodhya, he was arrested by Lalu Prasad Yadav's orders at Samastipur on the charges of disturbing the peace and fomenting communal tension.[92] VP Singh faced the vote of no confidence in the Lok Sabha saying that he occupied the high moral ground, as he stood for secularism, had saved the Babri Masjid at the cost of power and had upheld the fundamental principles which were challenged during the crises.[97] Although Chandra Shekhar had a mere 64 MPs, Rajiv Gandhi the leader of the Opposition, agreed to support him on the floor of the House; so he won a confidence motion and was sworn in as Prime Minister.[101][102] He spent the next few years touring the country speaking about matters related to issues of social justice and his artistic pursuits, chiefly painting.[104] Later the same year in December, he led his followers to Ayodhya to oppose the Karseva proposed by LK Advani, and was arrested before he could reach the site; the Masjid was demolished by the Karsevaks a few days later.But he declined the offer made to him by communist veteran Jyoti Basu, Bihar strongman Lalu Prasad Yadav and almost all leaders of the Janata family.[111] Singh was placed under arrest in Ghaziabad as he and his supporters were proceeding towards a hauling where prohibitory orders under Section 144 had been imposed to join the farmers agitating against the acquisition of land at Dadri by the Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Industries and demanding adequate compensation.[127] After his death, his elder son Ajeya Singh was sworn as the Raja Bahadur of the Manda estate in 2007 and in 2009, he merged his party Jan Morcha with Indian National Congress.
V. P. Singh BadnoreV. K. SinghVijay P. SinghPrime Minister of IndiaRamaswamy VenkataramanShankar Dayal SharmaDeputyDevi LalRajiv GandhiChandra ShekharUnion Minister of External AffairsP. V. Narasimha RaoInder Kumar GujralUnion Minister of DefenceK. C. PantUnion Minister of FinancePranab MukherjeeLeader of the House, Rajya SabhaNarayan Datt TiwariChief Minister of Uttar PradeshChandeshwar Prasad Narayan SinghBanarsi DasSripati MishraMember of ParliamentRajya SabhaUttar PradeshLok SabhaHari Krishna ShastriVishambhar Prasad NishadFatehpur, Uttar PradeshJaneshwar MishraAllahabad, Uttar PradeshAmitabh BachchanKamala BahugunaPhulpur, Uttar PradeshJan MorchaRaj BabbarJanata DalSharad YadavRaja BahadurInstrument of Accession26th Amendment of the Indian ConstitutionAjeya Pratap SinghAllahabadUnited ProvincesBritish IndiaNew DelhiHinduismAllahabad UniversityUniversity of PuneIndian National CongressFergusson CollegeUttar Pradesh Legislative AssemblyRajiv Gandhi ministryMinister of FinanceMinister of DefenceLeader of the Rajya SabhaBofors scandalJanata Party1989 electionsNational FrontBharatiya Janata PartyMandal Commissionbackward castesprotestsSixty-second AmendmentScheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Actexodus of Kashmiri HindusKashmirRam Rath Yatravote of no-confidence1991 elections1996 Indian general electionH. D. Deve GowdaBabri Masjid demolitionmultiple myelomaRajputZamindarBelan RiverAllahabad districtManikpurRaja Jai ChandKannaujColonel Brown Cambridge SchoolDehradunPune UniversitySoraonCongress Partychief whipIndira GandhiMinister of CommercedacoityPhoolan DeviPolice encounterupper-casteRashtriya Samajwadi CongressN. D. TiwariPhulpurFatehpurIndian National Congress (Organisation)Indian National Congress (Requisition)L. K. AdvaniDefenceExternal AffairsFinanceRajiv Gandhi's1984 general electionFinance Ministertenth Cabinet of IndiaLicense RajEnforcement DirectorateDhirubhai AmbaniDefence Minister of IndiaKrishna Chandra PantBoforsMinister of External Affairs of IndiaArun NehruArif Mohammad KhanJanataJayaprakash NarayanLok DalCongress (S)Dravida Munnetra KazhagamTelugu Desam PartyAsom Gana ParishadNT Rama Rao