Mr.V. P. Singh the 7th prime minister of India (1989-1990)

Vishwanath Pratap Singh(25 June 1931 – 27 November 2008) also known as V.P.Singh , was an Indian politician and government official, the 7th Prime Minister of India from 2nd December 1989 to 10th November 1990.Singh held the office for 343 days

After state legislative elections in March 1990, Singh’s governing coalition achieved control of both houses of India’s parliament.During this time, Janata Dal came to power in five Indian states under Om Prakash Chautala ,Chimanbhai Patel, Biju Patnaik, Laloo Prasad Yadav, and Mulayam Singh Yadav, and the National Front constituents in two more NT Rama Rao, and Prafulla Kumar Mahanta.

Together with associates Arun Nehru and Arif Mohammad Khan, Singh floated an opposition party named Jan Morcha.He was a prominent leader and couldn't hold the office for a very long time.He died in 27 november 2008 in New delhi at the age of 77 due to Multiple myeloma (its a cancer plasma cells which weakens the bones)

PERSONAL BACKGROUND

Singh was born in a Rajput zamindar family ruling the Manda estate on 25 June 1931.He was adopted by raja bahadur singh his actual father was Raja Bhagwati Prasad Singh.He obtained his education from Colonel Brown Cambridge School, Dehra Dun and studied at Allahabad and Pune universities.

Singh became a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh in 1969 as a member of the Congress Party. He got elected to the Lok Sabha in 1971 and was appointed a Deputy Minister of Commerce by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1974. He served as the Minister of Commerce in 1976–77.

He was appointed by Indira Gandhi as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1980 and many more all this will be explained in his political career below.

FAMILY BACKGROUND

Singh married Princess Sita Kumari, the daughter of the Raja of Deogarh-Madaria, Rajasthan, on 25 June 1955. It was an arranged marriage. He turned 24 on the day of the marriage, and she was 18.Kumari was a Sisodia Rajput descended from Rana Pratap of Udaipur.The couple had two sons, Ajeya Singh (born 1957), a chartered accountant in New York, and Abhai Singh (born 1958), a doctor at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi.

Father-Raja Bahadur Ram Gopal Singh

Mother-Rani Bhuvaneshwari Kumari

Spouse-Sita Kumari

Sons-Ajeya Singh,Abhai Singh

PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND

He dint have any professional background only thing he had was he wrote some literature books (MENTIONED BELOW)

POLITICAL CAREER

• In 1969, he joined the Indian National Congress Party and became a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh. In 1971, he won the Lok Sabha elections and became a Member of Parliament. In 1974, he was elected the Union Deputy Minister of Commerce and from November 1976 to March 1977, he served as the Union State Minister of Commerce.

• In 1980, he was appointed the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, a post he held until 1982. During his tenure, he worked hard to eradicate the dacoit problem in south-western Uttar Pradesh.

• In 1983, he resumed his post as Minister of Commerce in the cabinet. He also held additional charge of the Department of Supply and became the Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha).

• In September 1984, he was elected President of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee. Upon the death of Indira Gandhi in October 1984, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi appointed him the Union Finance Minister on December 31, 1984.

• In January 1987, he was transferred to the post of minister of defense but he resigned from Gandhi’s cabinet later that year, after his investigations of arms-procurement fraud were squelched. Soon afterwards, he resigned from the government altogether and left the Congress Party.

• After resigning as a Congress cabinet minister, he established an opposition party called ‘Jan Morcha’. He was elected to Lok Sabha once again in the tightly contested by-election in Allahabad.

• Thereafter he founded the Janata Dal (JD), a merger of small centrist opposition parties - Jan Morcha, Janata Party, Lok Dal, and Congress (S). With the help of Janata Dal, he soon assembled a larger nationwide opposition coalition called the National Front (NF), which contested the general parliamentary elections of November 1989 alongside BJP and the Communist parties.

• National Front won the elections and he became the Prime Minister of India on December 2, 1989. After the state legislative elections in March 1990, his governing coalition achieved control of both houses of India’s parliament.

• During his tenure as the Prime Minister, on the recommendation of the Mandal Commission, he passed a fixed quota reservation for all jobs in public sector for people falling under the historically disadvantaged “Other Backward classes” (OBC). This resulted in strong objection from non-OBC youths in urban areas of North India.

• He was ousted when BJP withdrew support to the National Front government after its leader L.K. Advani was arrested on Singh’s orders during a Rath Yatra that supported a construction of a Ram Mandir at Ayodhya. He resigned on November 7, 1990, after receiving a vote of no confidence in the Lok Sabha.

• Later he toured India giving public lectures and speeches concerning social justice and pursued his artistic interests, especially painting. But after he was diagnosed with cancer in 1998, he stopped making public appearances.

BOOKS WRITTEN

1. GS Bhargava: Peristroika in India: VP Singh's Prime Ministership, Gian Publishing House, New Delhi, 1990.

2. Madan Gaur: VP Singh: Portrait of a Leader, Press and Publicity Syndicate of India, 1990.

3. Seema Mustafa: The Lonely Prophet: VP Singh, a Political Biography, New Age international, 1995.

4. Ram Bahadur Rai: Manjil se Jyada Safar (in Hindi), 2005.

DESPITE BOOKS HE ALSO TOOK SOME FILMS SUCH AS

• Juliet Reynolds, an art critic and a close friend of Singh, made a short documentary on him, titled The Art of the Impossible (45 minutes long), and covers his political and artistic career.

• Suma Josson made another film on Singh titled One More Day to Live.