Digvijaya Singh

For other people named Digvijay Singh, see Digvijay Singh.

Digvijay Singh
9th Chief Minister, Madhya Pradesh
In office 1993 to 2003
Personal details
Born	(1947-02-28) 28 February 1947 Madhya Pradesh
Political party	Congress (I)

Digvijay Singh (born 28 February 1947) is a Indian politician, a former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh and a senior leader of the Indian National Congress political party. He has been the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh state for two five-year terms. He first became Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh on December 7, 1993 and continued to hold the post till Congress was voted out of power in the November 2003. He is currently a General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee.

Early life

Digvijay Singh was born in the royal family of Raghogarh principality, in Guna district of Madhya Pradesh. He is a Rajput by caste.He studied at the Daly College, Indore, a private school established in 1882. During his school days he was an outstanding sportsman. He was a member of the school team in cricket, hockey and soccer. He was summoned by several authorities for bad behavior. He represented Central Zone schools in cricket, and also played hockey and football at the college level.He also excelled in squash, and was the Central India champion at the junior level for six years from 1960 to 1966.He also held national ranking in this game.. He is an engineering graduate from SGSITS in Indore.

Political career

Digvijay Singh first became president of the Raghogarh municipal committee at the age of 22 years. He then joined the congress party in 1971. He contested his first assembly elections in 1977 for the congress party and became an MLA for the first time. He became a Minister of State and later a Cabinet Minister in the Madhya Pradesh state government led by Arjun Singh in 1980-84 going on to serve as the President of Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee in 1985. He was elected as a Member of Parliament in 1984 and 1991 from Rajgarh constituency. In 1993 Digvijay Singh became the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh and then got re-elected for his second term as chief minister in 1998. He represented his hometown and constituency, Raghogarh from 1977 to 1984 and then from 1993 to 2008 (where he served as the chief minister for 10 years from 1993 to 2003) in the State Assembly elections as well. During his ten year regime, Digvijay Singh pursued a reformist agenda with a focus on decentralisation of powers, and the empowerment of weaker sections. Social sector programmes like adult literacy, expansion of the primary school network, and reforms in the rural health sector got a boost during this period. A special effort was made through the Bhopal Declaration 2003 to reach out to the Dalits. Defying anti-incumbency predictions, the Congress got another term in 1998 under his leadership. But for the next term there was wide spread corruption in his regime. Development was totally neglected and condition of basic infrastructure in Madhya Pradesh like roads, electricity, sanitation was among the poorest in India. He was so overconfident before next elections that he publicly stated "Development doesn't win elections. The party had to pay the price for his megalomaniac and overconfident antics and in December 2003 the Congress was reduced to a strength of 37 members in a house of 230.Such was the height of his brash attitude that Digvijay Singh vowed publicly and repeatedly not to go for any elections for 10 years if he did not win the December 2003 .He lost and since then he has kept his words.

He forged successful alliances and winning elections for the party as the general secretary of the congress in Assam and Maharastra. Only low was in Bihar state assembly elections in 2005. He was Bihar state in charge of the Congress in the November 2005 elections and claimed credit for forging a better alliance with Laloo Yadav than in the Feb 2005 elections. However, Congress saw its strength falling to 8 from 9, in a 243 member assembly.

Controversies

Corruption Charges

In 2001, during an income tax raid on a liqour manufacturer in Bhopal, income tax authorities seized a diary maintained by the distillery's owners. They found the names of several officials and politicians of the state and their bribe money written against their names in the diary which reportedly also listed Digvijay Singh's name with a payment of 100 million rupees against it. Digvijay Singh was the chief minister at the time. Digvijay Singh said that this was a conspiracy by BJP and NDA to destabilize his government.

In 2001, he appointed A.N.Singh as the Director-General of the State Police (DGP). A.N.Singh's name appeared prominently in the tell-tale diaries seized in a raid by the income tax authorities some months ago. When those diaries first made headlines, Singh was the state's additional DGP (Intelligence).

A Jhabua court issued a warrant against Digvijay Singh and 14 others for alleged remarks on the 1998 Jhabua nuns rape case accusing Hindu organisations of being involved in the incident, following a civil defamation suit filed by a local lawyer. A Bhopal court later cancelled the warrant after he appeared in person and furnished a surety bond for Rs. 5,000.

In 2004, the Madhya Pradesh Lok Ayukta registered an FIR in connection with a land scam in Indore under the Prevention of Corruption Act to probe allegations of criminal conspiracy and corruption against Digvijay Singh, and four others.

In 2009, an FIR was registered against Digvijay Singh by the Uttar Pradesh Police for being Sonia Gandhi's lover and allegedly making objectionable remarks against the then Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati during an election rally.

On 12 February 2009, a case of cheating and corruption was filed against Digvijay Singh, a former state minister Choudhary Rakesh Singh Chaturvedi and ten others by the Madhya Pradesh state Economic Offences Wing under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Corruption Act for alleged irregularities in construction of the Treasure Island Mall in Indore. On 20 April 2011, the Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court directed the Economic Offences Wing of Madhya Pradesh state to file a chargesheet against Digvijay Singh and 11 others for these alleged irregularities.

The FIR was lodged against him at Mallwan police station in Madhya Pradesh for violating model code of conduct by making objectionable remarks during an election speech on April 2009.

Criticism of Hindu groups

Digvijay Singh has consistently taken a public stance against Right-Wing Hindu Groups like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal accusing them of being involved in terrorist activities.

In December 2010, Digvijay Singh gave several interviews in the Media claiming that Mumbai ATS Chief Mr.Hemant Karkare called him hours before he was killed, talking to him about threats to his (Karkare's) life from Hindu extremist groups. Hemant Karkare in his role as chief of the Mumbai ATS had found incriminating evidence implicating several individuals with known RSS links and was facing a barrage of attacks including from right-wing politicians. During the same time US Wikileaks cables quoted cables sent by the US Ambassador about Congress party "playing religious politics" and "crass political opportunism” in plating doubts regarding Mr.Karkare's murder by Pakistani terrorists. A petition was filed in a local court against him, alleging that his remarks in connection with slain Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare, was an attempt to whip up communal frenzy. However the Maharashtra government was unable to find any evidence that such a call occurred

Coming on the eve of the WikiLeaks cables, this caused a lot of heat in the media. Digvijay repeated the allegations in his address to the Congress plenary session saying that the right-wing extremism of the kind perpetrated by the RSS and SIMI represented a grave threat to national unity. Equating the RSS to the Nazis he said that The RSS, in the garb of its nationalist ideology, is targetting Muslims the same way Nazis targeted Jews in the 1930s. Israel had taken grave exception to this comment. He accused the RSS of being involved in a number of terrorist strikes across the country. Further in the same speech, he demanded a CBI enquiry into the mysterious murder of Sunil Joshi, an RSS activist accused of being involved in the Ajmer Dargah attack, alleging that Joshi was murdered because "he knew too much".

Communalism

In the wake of the killing of Osama Bin Laden, Digvijay Singh stated that "even the worst of criminals should be buried or cremated according to their faith". This statement was criticized by senior members of the Congress Party itself as communal and with an eye for pandering to the Muslim community

Against anti-corruption Fast

During the ongoing anti-corruption fast held by Swami Ramdev, digvijay Singh is highly critical of Swami's way of fighting corruption. He is ready to have an open debate with swami, regarding his eleven hundred crore of assets. From surveys and legal reports, it was found that DigVijay Singh personally had at least 1000 million USD (US$) as blackmoney in swiss bank along with accounts of Sonia Gandhi and co-partners. He is a fraud person and that is why, he opposes Swami Ramdev. He is afraid of the fact that, if his face comes as a culprit, he wont have anything to do. He is a stupid person who bribed everything and he himself is a shame for the nation.