Ajit Singh son of Chaudhary Charan Singh, The first IITian to enter politics

Chaudhary Charan  Singh Fifth Prime Minister of the country. He held the chair from July 1979 to January 1980. He is called the leader who started farmer politics in North India. Along with the politics of farmers, Charan Singh did one more thing in his last days.

The work of maintaining the political chauvinism of his family in western Uttar Pradesh. But the political activism and stamina needed for this were not seen in Charan Singh after 1982-83. Health was also unhealthy.

So for this work, he brought his son back to India to work in a company like IBM in the US. Chaudhary Charan Singh’s son Ajit Singh. Later, in West UP, they were considered big leaders of Jaats and was a Union Minister four times.

And who was considered as the second largest ‘meteorologists’ of Indian politics? Because at first Ram Vilas Paswan remained.

Ajit Singh had left from IIT Kharagpur. Then he also studied at the Illinois Institute of Technology in America and started working in America. Chaudhary Charan Singh brought him back to India and brought him into politics.

Ajit Singh son of Chaudhary Charan Singh

In 1986, the Rajya Sabha. Ajit Singh had become the first IITian to enter Indian politics.

Chaudhary Charan Singh ceased in 1987. And since then, Ajit Singh broke how many parties, how many were formed, when and in which government, he was a minister – he might not even remember it all in one sequence. Today, in political stories, we will try to get Ajit Singh to introduce you to his political life, his personality.

Broken in Ajit’s entry and Lok Dal

The year 1987 was the month of March. Chaudhary Charan Singh, president of Lok Dal, was lying on the bed. Health was unnatural. Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna was made the working president of the Lok Dal by Chaudhary Saheb.

But in the meantime, internal fighting in the Lok Dal had intensified. On one side was Bahuguna, on the other side, Sahibzade Ajit Singh of Chaudhary Saheb, who took new steps in politics. Now Ajit Singh wanted control over the party.

But the rest in the party like Bahuguna, Karpoori Thakur, Nathuram Mirdha, Chaudhary Devi Lal and Leader of Opposition in UP Assembly Mulayam Singh Yadav did not approve of this. Controversy increased.

Most of the Lok Dal MLAs called a meeting at the behest of Ajit Singh. Mulayam Singh was removed from the post of Leader of Opposition in the meeting. Satyapal Singh Yadav, close to Ajit Singh, was chosen as his leader in place of him.

Satyapal Singh Yadav became the Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly. There was a split in the party.

Meanwhile, on 29 May 1987, party president Chaudhary Charan Singh died. After this, the party also broke up.

In Lokdal (A) and Lokdal (B). Ajit faction and Bahuguna faction. Big leaders like Devi Lal, Karpoori Thakur, Mulayam Singh, Sharad Yadav and Nathuram Mirdha left with Bahuguna.

But most of the MLAs of UP were with Ajit Singh. Meanwhile, Ajit Singh started preparing to go to the shelter of the ‘President’.

Further separation from Chandrasekhar

This was when the Janata Party’s internal conditions were more or less similar to the Lok Dal. The tussle between the Janata Party president Chandrashekhar and Karnataka Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde was at the height of the party’s occupation. Hegde’s political career was very bright in those days.

The party and their out-of-party cheerleaders showed them the dream of claiming the ‘top job’ in Delhi. But the biggest obstacle in this path was his ‘President’ i.e. Chandrashekhar.

Meanwhile, the Roop Kanwar Devrala Sati scandal happened in Rajasthan. Kalyan Singh Kalvi, Rajasthan State President of the Janata Party, supported this scandal. There was a ruckus in the Janata Party about his support and demand for action against Kalvi started.

But then Chandrasekhar came to the rescue of Kalvi. As a result, Madhu Dandavate, George Fernandes, Surendra Mohan, Jaipal Reddy, Biju Patnaik all turned against Chandrashekhar.

There was increasing pressure on him to leave the post of president. Then Chandrasekhar moved his bet. He merged the Lok Dal (A) led by Ajit Singh into the Janata Party. In a short time, Ajit Singh was made the party president.

In the same period, the ruckus of Bofors also came to the fore. VP Singh, who was expelled from the Congress and his Janam Morcha colleagues (Arun Nehru, Vidyacharan Shukla, Arif Mohammad Khan et cetera) started getting tremendous support among the public.

But the problem with him was that there was no organization to convert this public support into votes in the upcoming elections. There was a consensus between the Janata Party and the Lok Dal that “why not unite and form a party under the leadership of VP Singh”.

But Chandrasekhar was the only one of these two parties who were strongly opposed to considering VP Singh as the leader. Ajit Singh also left Chandrasekhar on this issue. Ultimately Chandrasekhar also had to bow down.

On 11 October 1988, the Janata Dal was formed in Bangalore with the merger of Janata Party, Janam Morcha and Lok Dal. VP Singh was made the President of the Janata Dal and Ajit Singh was made the General Secretary.

But Chandrasekhar did not forgive him for Ajit Singh’s change of face.

Ajit vs Mulayam

Uttar Pradesh assembly elections held in 1989. The Janata Dal won 208 seats in the 425-member assembly. That is, only 5 less than the majority figure. So much was going on with independents as well.

Under this formula, it was said that in Uttar Pradesh, Ajit Singh should be made the Chief Minister and Mulayam Singh as the Deputy Chief Minister.

But where was Mulayam Singh supposed to agree? He still remembers his insult two and a half years ago, when Ajit Singh was forced to remove him from the post of Leader of the Opposition.

Mulayam Singh announced to contest for the post of Legislature Party leader. As a result, VP Singh sent 3 observers from Delhi to manage the case. Professor Madhu Dandavate, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Chimanbhai Patel.

All three tried hard to convince Mulayam. But Mulayam did not agree. The meeting of the Janata Dal Legislature Party finally started in the presence of the three Observers at Tilak Hall, Lucknow on the afternoon of 3 December.

The MLAs started reaching Tilak Hall at 2 pm. All 208 MLAs of the Janata Dal and 7 Legislative Councilors arrived at the meeting.

Voting was conducted with the secret ballot. Mulayam got 115 and Ajit Singh got 110 votes. Mulayam Singh had defeated Ajit Singh in the election of the leader of the Legislative Party.

And had also avenged the humiliation of two and a half years ago.

On 5 December 1989, he became the Chief Minister of UP. But Prime Minister and Janata Dal president VP Singh did not disappoint Ajit Singh. He was also made a cabinet minister at the Center on 5 December itself. He was made the Minister of Industry.

Narasimha Rao takes credit for Ajit’s effort

Industry minister Ajit Singh brought a new industrial policy to the VP Singh government. In this industrial policy, the complete blueprint for the elimination of license-permit raj was drawn.

In this industrial policy, it was proposed to end a setback to the long-standing legal and legislative bottleneck to open all types of industries except 8 industries involving hazardous chemical and explosives.

On the instructions of Ajit Singh, the then industry secretary Amarnath Verma and other experts had worked hard to prepare this policy. But the Janata Dal was completely a gathering of socialists.

In this, Congressmen like VP Singh and Arun Nehru and a few people like Ajit Singh who had spent a long time as computer engineers in America belonged to the non-socialist background.

So what is the fate of his industrial policy, it is needless to say. As soon as Ajit Singh put a new industrial policy on the floor of the Lok Sabha in April 1990, the uproar started.

The people who created the uproar were not from the opposition, but their own party, the Janata Dal and its ally, the Left Front. As a result, Ajit Singh’s industrial policy went into cold storage.

A few months later VP Singh’s government was sacrificed in the circle of Mandal and Kamandal and Chandrashekhar became Prime Minister in his place. But with the passing of 8 months, he also became an ex.

After this, the Congress government was formed under the leadership of PV Narasimha Rao. Narasimha Rao made industry secretary Amarnath Verma his principal secretary. Then Amarnath Varma explained to Narasimha Rao,

“Sir, don’t delay any longer. The entire draft is ready. There is a need to provide oxygen to the economy as well, so get the industrial policy approved by the Parliament immediately. ”

On this, Rao’s Finance Minister Manmohan Singh also gave his consent. And then in July 1991 (a few days before the historic budget), the Narasimha Rao government put exactly this industrial policy on the floor of the Lok Sabha. There was an uproar this time too. Both within the Congress and from the opposition.

But Rao persevered and got the industrial policy approved. After this, the country entered a phase of liberalization and globalization. But nobody gave credit to Ajit Singh’s hard work and took all the credit to Narasimha Rao.

When Ajit Singh came to Congress

In the 1991 Lok Sabha elections, the Janata Dal was reduced to just 59 seats.

VP Singh started moving away from politics and a new power centre was developed in the Janata Dal. Sharad Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan and Lalu Yadav became the most powerful in this power centre. So many leaders left the Janata Dal and separated.

Ajit Singh, along with 20 MPs, also left the party and rejected the claim on the party symbol. As a result, Chief Election Commissioner TN Seshan froze Janata Dal’s election symbol ‘Chakkar’. Janata Dal (A) means Ajit faction as pen-away whereas Janata Dal (B) i.e. Bommai faction was allotted cup-plate print election symbol.

But Ajit Singh could not keep his group united and Narasimha Rao made a dent in his group. Meanwhile, in July 1993, a motion of no confidence was moved against the Narasimha Rao government.

To save the government on this no-confidence motion, Narasimha Rao tried to bring Ajit Singh into his court. But Ajit Singh went with the opposition on this matter.

Ramlakhan Singh Yadav, MP of Ajit Singh’s faction, got angry at his attitude. Ramlakhan Singh Yadav was an old Congressman and had a deep filter with Narasimha Rao.

Finally, Ramlakhan Singh Yadav joined the Congress along with 7 MPs of Janata Dal (A) and the government survived. After a few months, Ajit Singh too joined the Congress with his remaining party and Narasimha Rao made him food minister.

Round of becoming a meteorologist

In this way, Ram Vilas Paswan is called the greatest ‘meteorologist’ in Indian politics. But Ajit Singh is also no less than Paswan in this matter. And he gave proof of this only in 1996. When Narasimha Rao slipped power from the hands, he joined hands with the Congress party.

Meaning, from here on too, Ram became Ram. After this, a new party was formed in the name of Bharatiya Kisan Kamgar Party and after a few months, won the by-election from his own left Baghpat seat and reached the Lok Sabha again.

This new party also had the support of Mahendra Singh Tikait, leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union. Tikait also held several farmer rallies with Ajit Singh.

His new party became part of the United Front. But alas, Ajit Singh was not made a minister.

Later, his party’s name became Rashtriya Lok Dal and on the same party ticket, he lost the 1998 election to BJP’s Sompal Shastri. This was his first electoral defeat.

But after 13 months, the mid-term elections came and he got a chance to go to the Lok Sabha again.

After reaching the Lok Sabha, he remained like this for one and a half years But in 2001, NDA convenor George Fernandes brought him to the NDA. He was made the Minister of Agriculture in the Vajpayee government.

Friendship with Mulayam

By 2003, Ajit Singh and Mulayam Singh became friends. Chandrasekhar played an important role in getting friendship between the two.

After this, in August 2003, Ajit Singh left both the NDA and the government to make ‘friend’ Mulayam the chief minister. At that time, his party, Rashtriya Lok Dal, had 14 MLAs.

Ajit Singh sent a letter from these MLAs to support Mulayam Singh at the Raj Bhavan. Mulayam became the Chief Minister for the third time.

After this, the friendship of Ajit Singh and Mulayam Singh continued till the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. Ajit Singh once again reached the Lok Sabha from Baghpat. But gradually his distance from Amar Singh started increasing.

Ran in NDA and UPA

It was the year 2008 and the month of July. The Left Front had withdrawn support from the UPA government on the issue of the nuclear deal. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was to get a vote of confidence in the House.

UPA managers got into the majority jugaad. He also got the support of SP with 39 MPs. But some more MPs had to be juggled for now. In such a situation, Ajit Singh was approached.

His party had 3 MPs. Meanwhile, in a hurry, the name of Amausi Airport of Lucknow was changed to Chaudhary Charan Singh Airport. But Ajit Singh should not believe even then. They clearly said,

“Amar Singh is running the Congress. Therefore, such a government that Amar Singh should run, I cannot support him. ”

Nevertheless, the UPA government won the trust vote. Subsequently, in the 2009 elections, the RLD, in alliance with the BJP, contested 7 seats and secured 5 seats. In this election, son Jayant Chaudhary was also launched.

Jayant also won the Mathura seat. But then by 2011, Ajit Singh was with the UPA. In December 2011, he also got the charge of civil aviation in the Manmohan Singh government.

Muzaffarnagar riots rupture politics

The biggest basis of Chaudhary Charan Singh’s political chauvinism was the Jat-Muslim equation. Ajit Singh also did not allow this equation to be broken. But the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots overturned the entire game.

Jat-Muslim unity was completely broken. And at the same time, the political land of Ajit Singh was broken. In 2014, Amit Shah made a move to defeat the father-son.

Fought against Ajit Singh in Baghpat, Mumbai Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh while Hema Malini was unloaded in Mathura against son Jayant.

As a result, both father and son lost their seats. Even in 2019, could not be managed.

Ajit Singh died on 6 May 2021 due to Covid-19.