Digvijaya Singh

Digvijaya Singh (born 28 February 1947) is an

Since 1969, he was married to Asha Singh, who died in 2013, and with whom he has four daughters and a son Jaivardhan Singh, who was member of Madhya Pradesh's 14th Vidhan Sabha serving as the Cabinet Minister of Urban Development and Housing.^[14][15] In April 2014, he confirmed that he was in a relationship with a Rajya Sabha TV anchor Amrita Rai; they married in late August 2015.^{[16][17][18][19][20][21]}

Narmada Yatra

The sacred Narmada River, the lifeline of Central India, is worshipped as Narmada maiyya (mother) or Ma Rewa (derived from “rev” meaning leaping one). One of the five holy rivers of India, it is the only one which has the tradition of being circumambulated from source to sea and back, on a pilgrimage or yatra.^{[citation needed]}

Being the longest west-flowing river, the Narmada parikrama is a formidable spiritual exercise and challenge—an incredible journey of about 3,300 km.^[22]

Digvijaya Singh along with his wife started the Narmada Parikrama on 30 September 2017, from Barman Ghat, on banks of river Narmada after taking the blessing of his spiritual guru Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati.^[23] The journey took them from Barman Ghat, on River Narmada southern banks, all the way to its mouth at Bharuch in Gujarat. At Bharuch, Mithi Talai is the point where the Narmada joins the Arabian Sea. Here they took a motorboat from the southern to the northern end and begin the return journey along its northern bank. On 9 April 2018 they completed the narmada parikrama at Barman Ghat having covered 3,300 kilometres (2,100 mi) by foot in 192 days.^[24]

Political career

MLA and MP, 1977–1993

Singh was president of the Raghogarh

Returning to the Raghogarh constituency for the 1998 elections,^[33] Singh was re-elected and appointed by Sonia Gandhi to serve a second term as chief minister.^[34] Census data suggests that Singh's education reforms had become a particularly successful aspect of his government. Those reforms included the construction of thousands of new village schools under the EGS, and may have been significant in increasing the literacy rate in Madhya Pradesh from 45 per cent in 1991 to 64 per cent in 2001. The improvement among girls was particularly high, growing from 29 per cent to 50 per cent.^[35][b] In his second term as Chief Minister, Singh sought to extend his decentralising, socially beneficial ideas by instituting reforms in healthcare that would guarantee a minimum level of care at panchayat level by financing the training of locally nominated healthcare professionals. This mirrored his earlier efforts in education and was known as the Healthcare Guarantee Scheme.^[37]

power cuts. The latter resulted from thirty-two per cent of what had been the generation capacity of Madhya Pradesh now being in the new state of Chhattisgarh: while Chhattisgarh did not need all of that capacity, much of it had historically been used in the remainder of Madhya Pradesh, which now found itself having only around 50 per cent of the power that it required. Aditi Phadnis, a political journalist and author, also notes that in 1985, the state had been producing a surplus of electricity through a process of technical and administrative efficiency that was the envy of other areas and that then "The State Electricity Board began to be looked upon as a milch cow by successive politicians, Digvijay Singh included." Power was given away and no money was set aside for repairs and maintenance.^[31] One of Singh's last proposals while in office was to write-off the electricity bills of 1.2 million people over the preceding three years. In this, he was thwarted by the Election Commission of India, which ruled the proposal to be a breach of election rules.^[44] Singh had claimed that it was desirable because the farmers of the state — who needed electricity to power water pumps^[36] — had suffered three years of drought conditions.^[45]

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.^[27] 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.^[27] 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; he also said that he would like to see his son as the incumbent of the Raghogarh constituency.^[27][46] His son, Jaivardhan, was accompanied by his father when he joined the INC in June 2013 after previous involvement in its youth section. Mool Singh, the incumbent MLA, announced then that he would not be contesting his Raghogarh Assembly seat in the forthcoming elections, paving the way for Jaivardhan to be elected in a form of dynastic succession that is a feature of politics in India.^[47]

In January 2014, he was elected as a member of parliament to the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh.^[48]

Singh has been criticised by his opposition for corruption,^[49] which he denied.^[50] In 2011, a charge sheet was submitted in court against him^[51] but the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) determined in March 2014 that there was no case to answer.^[52]

In June 2015, Singh petitioned the Supreme Court, pleading for a CBI probe into the Vyapam scam. He claimed to have interacted with a whistleblower who had revealed sensitive information to him.^[53] The CBI dismissed the claim in November 2017, raising the possibility that Singh could be prosecuted for fabricating evidence.^[54]

In the

In 1998, 19[56] to 24^[57] farmers were shot dead by Madhya Pradesh police.^[58] Singh was Chief Minister of the state at the time and the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) blamed him for arresting farmers' leaders.^[59]

A comment by Singh in 2011 led to disagreements within his party. He stated that the Batla House encounter case, which led to the death of two terrorists and one police officer, was fake. The Union Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, dismissed Singh's claim and his demand for a further judicial investigation into it. Congress rejected his views that the encounter was stage-managed, stating that the encounter should not be politicised or raked up for political gains. Singh's stand on the Batla House encounter led to criticism from the opposition BJP.^[60]

In 2013, Singh described

Singh criticised the United States in 2011 for not respecting Osama bin Laden's religion when it buried him at sea, saying "however big a criminal one might be, his religious traditions should be respected while burying him." Congress's leadership distanced itself from his views. Singh later said that his statement should not be interpreted as support for or opposition to bin Laden, adding "I had merely said that the worst of criminals should be cremated according to their faith. He is a terrorist and he deserved the treatment that he got."^[62]

In March 2022, Digvijay Singh along with six others was sentenced for one year rigorous imprisonment by an Indore court in connection with clash with BJYM workers in 2011.^[63]

Views on Hindu nationalist groups

Singh has said that the right-wing extremism of the

References

Further reading

• ISBN 9781850656708
  .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Digvijaya Singh.

Official website

Political offices
Preceded by Sunderlal Patwa	Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh 1993–2003	Succeeded by Uma Bharati