VP Singh: News

Vishwanath Pratap Singh was a senior political leader and former Prime Minister of India. He was the adopted son of Raja Bahadur Ram Gopal Singh of the Manda Zamindari in Uttar Pradesh. He was elected to the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly from Soraon in 1969 as part of the Indian National Congress (INC). Later, Singh was first elected to the Lok Sabha in the 1971 elections. Between 1983 and 1988, he was also a member of Rajya Sabha and served as the Union Minister of Finance (1984-87) and Defence (1987) in the Rajiv Gandhi government. However, due to the Bofors scandal, Singh left the Congress party in 1987 and formed his own party, Jan Morcha, which in turn combined with other opposition factions to form the Janata Dal. Singh led the National Front coalition against Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress in the 1989 Lok Sabha elections and formed the government with outside support from BJP. Singh became the Prime Minister of India between 1989 and 1990. During his reign, some major events, such as the Kashmiri Pandit exodus, the enactment of the SC-ST Act 1989, and the implementation of the Mandal Commission report, took place. His government fell in 1990 after the BJP withdrew support. Singh passed away in 2008, aged 77.