Vishwanath Pratap Singh was on born 25 June, 1931. He was the 10th Prime Minister of the Republic of India.
Achievements
Singh entered local politics in Allahabad in the Nehru government. V.P. Singh soon made a name for himself in the state Congress Party for his unfailing atitude, a reputation that he would carry with him throughout his career. He was choosen by Indira Gandhi to serve as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1980. As Chief Minister, he damaged hard on the dacoity, or banditry, problem, that was particularly severe in the rural districts of the south-west U.P. He received much favourable national publicity when he offered to resign following a self-professed failure to stamp out the problem, and again when he personally oversaw the surrender of some of the most feared dacoits of the area in 1983. Singh held office for slightly less than a year, from December 2, 1989 to November 10, 1990.
After attaining office as the Prime Minister he faced his first crisis. Terrorists in J&K had kidnapped the daughter of his Home Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. His government agreed on the demand of the terrorist for releasing militants in exchange V.P. Singh withdrew the IPKF from Sri Lanka after he saw that Rajiv Gandhi`s Sri Lanka policy was a miserable failure having cost over 1000 Indian soldiers` lives, over 5000 Sri Lankan Tamil lives and cost over 2000 crores and the Sri Lankan leader Premadasa wanted the IPKF to leave in March 1990.
Singh wished to move forward nationally on social justice-related issues, which would in addition consolidate the caste coalition that supported the Janata Dal in North India, and accordingly decided to implement the recommendations of the Mandal Commission which stated that a fixed quota of all jobs in the public sector be reserved for members of the historically disadvantaged so-called Other Backward Classes. This decision led to widespread protests among the youth in urban areas in North India.
Meanwhile the BJP was moving its own agenda forward in particular, the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation, which served as a cry for several radical Hindu organisations. The party president, Lal Krishna Advani, toured the northern states on a bus converted to look like a chariot with the intention of getting support. Before he could complete it, by reaching the controvercial site in Ayodhya, he was arrested on V.P. Singh`s orders on the charges of disturbing the peace and raising communal tension. V.P.Singh faced the vote of confidence with a high moral ground that he stood for secularism ,that he saved the Babri Masjid at the cost of power and that basic principles were involved. But he lost the vote by 142-346 in the elections.
Singh decided to take retirement from active politics. He spent the next few years touring the country speaking about matters related to issues of social justice, and painting. In the Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral governments, Singh acted as a sort of elder statesman and advisor for the successors to the National Front coalition. He was diagnosed with cancer in 1998 and therefore ceased his public appearances.
When his cancer went into remission in 2003, he once again became a visible figure, he re-formed the Jan Morcha in 2005, and began the slow process of aggregation of smaller parties in the North with a view to contesting the Uttar Pradesh vidhan Sabha elections scheduled for 2007. Singh was placed under arrest in Ghaziabad as he and his supporters were proceeding towards the place where prohibitory orders under Section 144 had been imposed to join the farmers agitating against the acquisition of land by the Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Industries and demanding adequate compensation. He passed away on 28th November , 2008.
