Former minister Arjun Singh dies

IANS/New Delhi

Arjun Singh

Congress leader Arjun Singh, a former union minister, chief minister and governor, who made a strong bid to become prime minister in the mid-1990s, died of cardiac arrest in a hospital here yesterday evening. He was 80. Singh is survived by two sons and a daughter.
"He was in the hospital for the last 15 days and was shifted to the ICU (intensive care unit) on Thursday. He was suffering from chronic diseases,” All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) director R C Deka said. "He was on life support.”
A staunch loyalist of the Gandhi family, Arjun Singh was twice the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, governor of Punjab and commerce and human resource minister at the centre.
Yesterday, Singh was named a permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee. As soon as the word spread about his death, senior Congress leaders and workers thronged his official residence 17, Ashoka Road.
At AIIMS, his body was embalmed, before it was taken to his residence.
Singh was a shrewd politician who wanted to be prime minister saw his ambitions thwarted by the widow of Rajiv Gandhi, the man to whom he remained loyal throughout his life.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi expressed sorrow at Singh’s death.
Singh was the virtual number two in the cabinet of prime minister P V Narasimha Rao during 1991-96. As the human resource development minister in the Rao cabinet, Singh was not only responsible for launching the national literacy mission but also launched a not-so-covert political mission to unseat Rao when the latter was under siege because of the swirling corruption scandals.
He along with senior colleague Narayan Dutt Tiwari launched a rebel party - Congress (T) - which played spoilsport in the 1996 elections and denied Rao a second innings.
Singh rejoined the Congress in 1997 after Rao was sidelined. He played a role in prevailing upon Sonia Gandhi to lead the party when it was in a bad shape.
He became a minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2004. He was dropped, much to his displeasure, from the second United Progressive Alliance (UPA) cabinet in 2009.
Known for his sharp political intellect, Singh started his legislative innings in Madhya Pradesh in 1957. He held the post for almost six years in different tenures. He was appointed governor of Punjab by then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi during the height of militancy in the state and worked towards the Rajiv-Longawal accord.