Digvijaya Singh

Digvijaya Singh
9th Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh
In office 1993 to 2003
Preceded by	Sunderlal Patwa
Succeeded by	Uma Bharati
Constituency	Raghogarh
Personal details
Born	(1947-02-28) 28 February 1947 Indore, Madhya Pradesh
Political party	Indian National Congress
Spouse	Asha Digvijaya Singh
Profession	Agriculturist
Website	http://www.digvijayasingh.in

Digvijaya Singh (born 28 February 1947) is an Indian politician, a former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh and a senior leader of the Indian National Congress political party. Before being elected as a Chief Minister he had served as a minister in the Cabinet of Arjun Singh, the then Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh during 1980–84. He served as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh for two consecutive five-year terms. He first became Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh on 7 December 1993 and continued to hold the office till Congress was voted out of the power in November 2003.

As of 2013, he is a General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee (AICC).

Personal life

Singh was born at Indore in the state of Madhya Pradesh on 28 February 1947. His father, Balbhadra Singh, had been ruler of the former princely state of Raghogarh in the present-day Guna district of Madhya Pradesh. He was educated at Daly College in Indore and the Shri Govindram Seksaria Institute of Technology and Science, where he completed a B. Tech in Mechanical Engineering.

He married Asha Singh, who died in 2013, and has four daughters and a son. He is a Hindu.

Political career

MLA and MP, 1977-1993

Singh was president of the Raghogarh Nagar palika (a municipal committee) between 1969 and 1971. An offer in 1970 from Vijayaraje Scindia for him to join the Jana Sangh was not taken up and he subsequently joined the Congress party. He became a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) as the party's representative for the Raghogarh Vidhan Sabha constituency in the 1977 elections. This was the same constituency that his father had won in 1951 as an independent candidate with support from the Jana Sangh. Digvijaya was later re-elected from the Raghogarh constituency and became a Minister of State and later a Cabinet Minister in the Madhya Pradesh state government led by Arjun Singh, whom he has called his mentor, between 1980–84.

He was president of the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee between 1985 and 1988, having been nominated by Rajiv Gandhi, and was again elected to the presidency in 1992. He had been elected as a member of the 8th Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament of India, in the Indian general election of 1984, representing the Rajgarh Lok Sabha constituency. He was the first Congress politician to win the constituency, which had been created in 1977. Having won that contest by 150,000 votes, he lost the seat to Pyarelal Khandewal of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by 57,000 votes in the 1989 general election. He regained it in 1991, becoming a member of the 10th Lok Sabha.

Chief Minister, 1993-2003

In 1993, he resigned from the Lok Sabha because he had been appointed Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh. His brother, Lakshman Singh, had been elected in 1993 as a Congress MLA in Madhya Pradesh from the same Raghogarh assembly constituency that Digivijaya had previously held. Lakshman resigned the seat in favour of Digvijaya, who needed to be elected to the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly in order to fulfil his role as Chief Minister. However, the scheme failed when a petition was filed that challenged the validity of Lakshman's 1993 election. Digvijaya instead won the by-election from Chachhoda constituency, which was vacated by the sitting MLA for that purpose.

The Hindi Belt, of which Madhya Pradesh is a part, has a significant number of economically and socially disadvantaged dalit and tribal communities. Through his policies, which have evoked both strong support and criticism among academics, Singh targeted the prospects of those people during his first term in office. These efforts were an attempt to arrest the declining support for the INC by those communities that had been a feature since the 1960s due to the strength of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Jana Sangh and its political successor, the BJP. He was following the example set by Arjun Singh in taking this approach, which was not adopted in others areas of the Belt such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Sudha Pai says that "He was driven by both the political imperative to sustain the base of the party among these social groups and ... a commitment to improve their socio-economic position." The "Dalit Agenda" that resulted from the Bhopal Conference in 2002 epitomised the strategy, which by Digvijaya Singh's time was more necessary than during Arjun Singh's period in power because one outcome of the Mandal Commission had been increased dalit desires for self-assertion. His approach to reform in what was still largely a feudal society was driven by a top-down strategy to achieve dalit and tribal support, as opposed to the bottom-up strategy of other Belt leaders such as Mayawati and Lalu Prasad Yadav, who lacked Singh's upper caste/class status and harnessed the desire for empowerment in the depressed communities through identity politics. Among the measures introduced to achieve his aim were the Education Guarantee Scheme, redistribution of common grazing land (charnoi) to landless dalits and tribals, the promotion of Panchayati Raj and a supplier diversity scheme which guaranteed that 30 per cent of government supplies would be purchased from the disadvantaged groups. There was less emphasis than previously on methods of assistance that were focussed on reservation of jobs.

Returning to the Raghogarh constituency for the 1998 elections, Singh was re-elected for a second term as chief minister. He won the constituency again in 2003 but his party overall was defeated by the BJP.

Work at national level

Following his party's defeat, Singh determined that he would not contest any polls for the next decade and the Raghogarh constituency was won by his cousin, Mool Singh, at the next elections in 2008. Singh shifted his attention to working for Congress from the centre, becoming a general secretary of the AICC and being involved in the party's organisation across several states, including Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

In 2012, Singh said that there was a need for younger people to be involved in state assemblies and that he had no further interest in contesting state elections. He expressed a willingness to contest the 2014 Lok Sabha elections if Congress wanted him to do so.

Debates, disputes, and controversies

Chhattisgarh separation

After the formation of Chhattisgarh in 2001, Singh played a major role in the selection of Ajit Jogi as the Chief Minister for the state though Jogi has been critical of style of functioning by Singh. While Singh managed to convince the majority of Congress Legislator Party members to back Ajit Jogi, the absence of Vidya Charan Shukla and his supporters at the meeting raised questions about the exercise of seeking consensus as Shukla was the other top contender for the post. Subsequently, Singh met with Shukla in order to allay concerns and in doing so had a confrontation with a group of alleged Shukla supporters whom Shukla later denounced.

Singh suggested in 2011 that the Batla House encounter case, which led to the death of two terrorists and one police officer, was fake. This led to disagreements with his own party, with Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram both dismissed Singh's claim and his demand for a further judicial investigation into it. Congress distanced itself and rejected his views that the encounter was stage-managed, stating that the encounter should not be politicized or raked up for political gains. Singh's stand on the Batla House encounter led to criticism from the opposition BJP. In 2013, a Delhi court ruled that the Batla House encounter was genuine but Singh continued to maintain that his opinion and demands were correct. The Times of India noted that "The judgement has once again exposed the habit of Congress general secretary to give controversial and irresponsible statement. However, Singh refused to take back his words even after the court judgement."

Other controversies

• In November 2012, Singh compared Arvind Kejriwal to Rakhi Sawant stating that both try and expose but with no substance. Rakhi sent a letter regarding the same to the police in which she claimed to be 'deeply aggrieved', accused Singh of attacking her 'noble character' and demanded compensation of Rs 50 crore. Singh subsequently apologized to Sawant claiming he is an old fan of hers.
• In July 2013, activists demanded action against Digvijaya Singh for making what they claimed was a sexist comment against his colleague Meenakshi Natarajan. Singh had stated: ““Gandhivadi hain, saral hain, imandar hain. Sabke paas jaati hain, gaon gaon jaati hain. Rajneetigyon ko thodi si baat me pata chal jaata hai ki kaun farzi hai, kaun sahi hai. Main purana jauhri hoon, ye 100% tunch maal hai," The translation would be: “She believes in Gandhian philosophy, is simple, honest. She meets everybody and visits villages. Politicians have the ability to know who is fake and who is genuine after brief interactions. I am an old jeweler, she is 100% pure item.”. Natarajan reacted to the controversy claiming that that there was nothing objectionable in Singh's statement and only those with a negative mindset are seeing wrong in what Singh had said. She said that Singh's statement needs to be understood in the correct context. Singh has clarified that by 100 tanch he meant 100% Pure and that this is a commonly used phrase used for praising a person which cannot be said to be sexist. Singh has also blamed the media of distorting his words and running amok in the race for TRP ratings, and advised media people to introspect.

Further reading

• Jaffrelot, Christophe (2003). India's Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in North India. C. Hurst & Co. ISBN 9781850656708.</ref>

External links

Official website