Kalyan Singh, former Chief Minister of UP and former Governor of Rajasthan, passed away on Saturday, August 21, 2021 at SGPIMS, Lucknow due to sepsis and multi organ failure.
The defining moment in Kalyan Singh’s life was the fall of the Babri Masjid on 6 December 1992. Hours after it was demolished by a mob of kar sevaks, Singh stepped down as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, taking moral responsibility.
Not that he had any regrets over his “failure” to save the mosque, which he had assured the Supreme Court to preserve.
“Perhaps it was destiny that the structure with me as chief minister would be demolished,” he told a newspaper ahead of the 2020 “bhoomi pujan” for the Ram temple, which is now in Ayodhya after a historic Supreme Court event. being built at the disputed site. Decision.
“If there was no demolition, perhaps the courts would also have ordered the status quo,” he said. And his last wish, he said, was to live till the temple was built. Singh, a Hindutva icon and veteran leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, died in a Lucknow hospital on Saturday. He was 89 years old.
Hailed by many for his administrative prowess during his two terms as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, the influential backward caste leader from western UP twice parted ways with the BJP and for some time even his own organisation. Make it
His second run was before the Lok Sabha elections in 2009, when he said he felt “humiliated” by the party and complained that he had hardly any say in the selection of candidates in his state.
Singh said rejoining the BJP was a “political blunder”, which he had first left in 1999, only to return in 2004 before the general election.
Born on 5 January 1932, Kalyan Singh became an MLA for the first time in 1967. Since then, he has won assembly elections several times, held important positions in the BJP and was appointed governor of Rajasthan in the last phase of his public life.
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Soon after Raj Bhavan’s term ended in 2019, Singh formally joined the BJP as a primary member, indicating that he is not yet keen on retiring from political life.
Back in 1991, he became the first BJP chief minister of the country’s most populous state. A little over a year later, the Babri Masjid was demolished as the Sangh Parivar’s campaign to build a temple at the same site gained momentum.
As the Chief Minister of UP, Singh had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court, assuring that the 16th-century mosque would be protected. But he later ordered the police not to open fire on the protesters, arguing that any such action would result in too much bloodshed.
Recognizing the failure to defend the mosque, he resigned the same evening. The state assembly was dissolved due to riots that broke out in many places in the country.
In the next assembly election in November 1993, he contested from two seats— Atrauli and Kasganj- and won both.
The Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance formed the government in the state under the leadership of Mulayam Singh Yadav, even though the BJP won the maximum number of seats.
Singh was the Leader of the Opposition in the UP Legislative Assembly.
He took his second position at the top post in September 1997, becoming CM again under a six-month rotation formula with the Bahujan Samaj Party. The system soon collapsed with the BSP withdrawing its support.
But, backed by a group of disgruntled opposition members, his government survived. A controversial order by Governor Romesh Bhandari to dismiss his government was also stayed by the High Court.
But a section of BJP MLAs was firing fiercely for him. One reason for the discontent was the alleged interference in the state government by Lucknow corporator Kusum Rai, who was also asked to control access to the chief minister.
In November 1999, Kalyan Singh was removed from the post of Chief Minister by the party high command as opposition grew within the BJP.
Later, he was formally expelled from the party for his comments targeting the top leadership of the party. Singh appeared to be in sync with Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, who offered his son Rajveer Singh a ticket.
In 2010, he also created the Jan Kranti Party, but let his son lead it – until it “merged” with the BJP. All these years, the hearing of the Babri Masjid demolition case continued.
Singh was exempted from trial while in office.
After stepping down as the governor of Rajasthan, he appeared before the CBI court, which pronounced its order in September 2020, acquitting him and 31 others of the charge of conspiracy to demolish the mosque.
The judge concluded that there was no evidence to show that the demolition was premeditated.
He was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences here on the evening of July 4 due to infection and low level of consciousness.
Before being shifted to PGI, the former Chief Minister was undergoing treatment at Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences.
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