Kalyan Singh

Kalyan Singh (5 January 1932 – 21 August 2021) was an Indian politician and a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

He served twice as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and as a Member of Parliament.

Kalyan Singh was born in Aligarh district in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) in 1932.

His family belonged to the Lodhi community.

Singh was a swayamsevak, or volunteer, of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, becoming a member while still in school.

His son, Rajveer Singh, and grandson, Sandeep Singh, are also politicians and members of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

He entered the Uttar Pradesh legislature as a Member of the Legislative Assembly for Atrauli in 1967.

He won nine more elections to that constituency as a member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the BJP, the Janata Party and the Rashtriya Kranti Party.

Singh contested elections to the Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly from the Atrauli assembly constituency for the first time in 1967 as a candidate of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) and defeated his Indian National Congress (INC) opponent by 4351 votes.

Singh contested each of the following ten legislative assembly elections from the same constituency, in 1969, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1985, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1996, and 2002.

He won nine of these races, the exception coming in 1980, when he was defeated by Anwar Khan of the INC.*

In late 1990 the BJP and its Hindu-nationalist affiliates organised the Ram Rath Yatra, a religious rally in support of its agitation to build a Hindu temple over the Babri Masjid in the city of Ayodhya.

The yatra became a significant mass movement, and strengthened religious sentiments among Hindus.

Considerable communal violence and polarization occurred in its aftermath.

Singh was appointed Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh for the first time in 1991, but resigned following the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

The BJP made large gains in the parliamentary and legislative elections that followed in 1991, and was able to form a government in Uttar Pradesh, with Kalyan Singh becoming the Chief Minister for the first time in June 1991.

As Chief Minister, Singh attempted to run an efficient administration, while also expressing strong support for the agitation to build a temple in Ayodhya.

Under Singh's leadership, the Uttar Pradesh government acquired 2.77 acre of land adjacent to the Babri Masjid property, The purchase was ostensibly to construct tourist facilities, but it allowed Hindus to conduct religious rituals at the site without directly addressing the legal status of the Babri Masjid.

He and other national leaders of the BJP, including Murli Manohar Joshi, traveled to the disputed site, and promised to build a Hindu temple there.

He was the Chief minister of Uttar Pradesh during the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992.

He is considered an icon of Hindu nationalism, and of the agitation to build a Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Singh became a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh while still in school.

The Singh government also removed Baba Lal Das, the Hindu priest who headed the temple that existed within the Babri Masjid complex, in March 1992.

Lal Das had been a vocal opponent of the agitation to build a Hindu temple over the Babri Masjid.

On 6 December 1992, the RSS and its affiliates organised a rally involving 150,000 VHP and BJP kar sevaks at the site of the Babri Masjid.

The ceremonies included speeches by BJP leaders such as L. K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti.

Activists of the Bajrang Dal and the Shiv Sena attacked the mosque, breaking through the police barricade, and demolished it.

Police present at the site did little to stop the demolition.

Singh had previously given the Indian Supreme court an affidavit, in which he promised that no harm would come to the Babri Masjid.

A few hours after the demolition, he resigned as Chief Minister.

The Indian Union government dismissed the Uttar Pradesh state government on the same day.

He became Chief Minister for a second term in 1997, but was removed by his party in 1999, and left the BJP, forming his own party.

Singh re-entered the BJP in 2004, and was elected a Member of Parliament from Bulandshahar.

He left the BJP for a second time in 2009, and successfully contested the 2009 Indian general election as an independent from Etah.

He joined the BJP again in 2014, and was appointed Governor of Rajasthan.

He served a five-year term, and re-entered active politics in 2019.

In September 2019 he was brought to trial for criminal conspiracy to demolish the Babri Masjid.

He was acquitted by a special court of the Central Bureau of Investigation in 2020.

He died on 21 August 2021 in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.

He was posthumously awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian award.