Vir Bahadur Singh, 14th UP CM and ex-Union communications minister

In the post-Emergency period, the Congress party continued to be dominated by leaders belonging to upper castes, with its leadership rotating the chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh between Brahmin and Thakur leaders. In this backdrop, a Gorakhpur-based Thakur leader, Vir Bahadur Singh, emerged in the UP Congress, who was sworn in as the state’s 14th Chief Minister on September 24, 1985.

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Months after Rajiv Gandhi took over as Prime Minister and Congress president in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s assassination, the elections to the 9th UP Assembly were held in early 1985, in which the Congress got a comfortable majority, winning 268 out of 425 seats. Among the Opposition parties, the Lok Dal won 85 seats to become the main Opposition party, with the Janata Party getting 18, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 16, CPI 5, CPM 3, Congress (O) 4 and Independents 23.

After the Congress victory, the incumbent party CM N D Tiwari again took the oath of office as the CM on March 11, 1985. But, just after six months, on September 23, 1985, Gandhi asked Tiwari to resign and picked Vir Bahadur Singh as his successor. It was another matter that after his nearly 2-year-9-month tenure, the Congress high command brought Tiwari back to replace Singh with him. The 9th UP Assembly thus witnessed the regimes of two Congress CMs — Tiwari, who did his stint twice, and Vir Bahadur Singh.

Singh, who was born on January 18, 1935 in a Gorakhpur village, completed his MA in geography from Gorakhpur University (now Deendayal Upadhyay Gorakhpur University). His political journey started in 1967 when he was elected to the UP Assembly from Paniyara in Gorakhpur district on the Congress ticket. He was re-elected from the same constituency as a Congress candidate in 1969, 1974, 1980 and 1985. He contested in 1977 as well, but was defeated by an Independent candidate Gunjeshwar.

When Chaudhary Charan Singh was sworn in as the UP CM for the second time with the support of the Indira Gandhi-led Congress (R), Singh was appointed as a deputy minister on April 19, 1970. He remained a deputy minister in the governments led by Kamlapati Tripathi and Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna too. In 1976, he was elevated to the minister of state’s position in the Tiwari government. He served as a cabinet minister in subsequent governments led by VP Singh, Sripati Mishra and Tiwari.

Vir Bahadur Singh was at the helm of the Congress government in UP at a critical time, when the state was in the throes of social and political upheavals. His dispensation also saw, in its final phase, many Congress leaders jumping ship and switching to rebel V P Singh’s camp. During his tenure, the state was racked by communal violence in many districts, including the Meerut massacre. The locks at the gates of the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi complex in Ayodhya were opened following a court order. The government employees had gone on long strikes over their various demands. The state was then also reeling under a severe drought situation and farmers had been up in arms under the leadership of Mahendra Singh Tikait.

The Vir Bahadur Singh government also once faced a no-confidence motion moved by then Lok Dal leader (and Leader of the Opposition) Mulayam Singh Yadav on September 8, 1986. Initiating the debate, Yadav charged that people of the state had lost trust in the government and that the ministers and bureaucrats too had lost confidence in CM Singh. He said the Singh government should resign because of its failures on “all fronts – political, economic and social”.

Vir Bahadur Singh on his visit to the communication centre at Telephone Bhavan, Colaba. (Express archive photo)

In his speech, Yadav alleged that while the ministers were busy in transfers and postings of officials, the policy decisions were being taken by the bureaucracy. He charged that there were differences between the chief secretary and the CM. He also said that innocent people were being killed in “fake encounters” and communal tension was prevailing in the state, while the government was “doing nothing about all these crises”.

Read more from the Express Series ‘The Uttar Pradesh CMs’

In his response, Singh said he promised a clean government after taking over the reins of the state. Regarding communal riots, he claimed UP registered lesser incidents of communal riots than other states. He said his government’s prime goal was to enhance agricultural production. Referring to complaints against bureaucrats, he said the disciplinary action had been initiated against officials of various ranks. The motion was finally defeated with 108 members voting in favour and 250 members against it. But in the following years, many leaders, even ministers, started quitting the Congress to join the VP Singh-floated outfit Jan Morcha (later Janata Dal). Transport minister Sanjay Singh (contesting the current UP Assembly polls from Amethi on the BJP ticket) was among the first group of such defectors.

Following his resignation as the CM, Rajiv Gandhi inducted Singh into his ministry as the communications minister. On May 30, 1989, he passed away in Paris, where he had gone for treatment, at the age of 54.

From beginning till the end, Singh remained with the Congress. His son Fateh Bahadur Singh however kept switching his political loyalties. Fateh Bahadur started with the Congress, then joined the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and is now with the BJP. He won four times from the same Paniyara seat on the Congress, BJP and BSP tickets. He also won from the neighbouring Caimpiyarganj seat in 2012 on the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) ticket and in 2017 as a BJP candidate.