Eye colour: black
Contents
family and caste
Ajit Singh belonged to an affluent Jat family of western Uttar Pradesh. His Gotra was ‘Tevatiya’ and his family was politically active.
parents and siblings
His father Chaudhary Charan Singh was a prominent farmer leader who later became the 5th Prime Minister of India. Ajit’s mother, Gayatri Devi, was a member of the Legislative Assembly from Iglas (1974), a constituency in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. After that, she became a member of the lower house of parliament from Kairana constituency in 1980. Ajit was the only son among the six children of his parents. His sisters’ names are Satyavati, Vedavati, Gyanvati, Saroj and Sharda.
Ajit Singh’s parents
Ajit Singh’s sisters and other family members
wife and children
Ajit Singh married Radhika Bishnoi on 17 June 1967. He had 3 children with her, two daughters, Nidhi and Deepa, and a son, Jayant Chaudhary, who is a former MP (2009–2014) from the Mathura constituency.
Ajit Singh with his wife Radhika
Ajit Singh with his son Jayant Singh
Religion
He followed Hindu religion.
Ajit Singh performing religious rituals
Address
He lived at 244/2, Shivaji Road, Meerut, 220001, Uttar Pradesh. Later he moved to 16 Green Avenue Church Road Basant Kunj New Delhi 110070.
Signature
Ajit Singh’s signature
livelihood
business area
Ajit Singh completed his B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Kharagpur. Later he went abroad for further studies. He earned a master’s degree in computer engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. After studies, he joined IBM as a computer scientist and became one of the first Indians to work there in the 1960s. He worked there for about 17 years.
Politics
When his father’s health started deteriorating, Ajit Singh returned to India. Lok Dal, a party founded by Chaudhary. In the early 1980s, Charan Singh was on the fringes of the faction. Ajit Singh returned from America at that time to continue the family legacy in farmer politics. He entered politics in 1986 when he joined Lok Dal as general secretary. In the same year he became a member of the Upper House of Parliament. His father died in 1987 after a long illness, but before his death he made Ajit Singh the party president and Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna was the working president. This arrangement could not satisfy the party members and it began to decline and in 1987 the Lok Dal split into two factions, the Lok Dal (A) led by Ajit Singh and the Lok Dal (B) led by Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna.
Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna taking oath
In 1988, Ajit decided to merge Lok Dal with Janata Dal and became the president of the newly formed Janata Party. This merger angered many party members, after which Ajit had to face opposition during the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly elections in 1989. Janata Party won that election. VP Singh proposed to make Ajit Singh the CM and Mulayam Singh Yadav the Deputy CM, but Mulayam rejected it and proposed voting to decide the leader of the winning party. In the voting, Mulayam Singh got 115 votes, while Ajit got 110 votes. This difference of 5 votes stopped Ajit from becoming the CM of Uttar Pradesh. Later, he became a member of the lower house of Parliament, and VP Singh kept him in his cabinet as Industries Minister; He served in the ministry from 1989 to 1990.
VP Singh and Ajit Singh
Ajit Singh is known to have taken important initiatives to help sugarcane farmers in western Uttar Pradesh, and once proposed reducing the circle distance between sugar mills from 25 km to 15 km. From 1989 to 2009, he won the general elections 6 times from Baghpat constituency and served as the Industries Minister, Food Minister, Agriculture Minister and Civil Aviation Minister.
During his political career, Ajit Singh played an important role in forming coalition governments by forming alliances with various parties. While talking about the coalition government he once said,
“Earlier the basis of alliance was made, now the basis of caste has been made.” We are not trying to reduce these caste, religion, language diversities but are taking advantage of them by increasing them. Such democracy does not become popular.”
Ajit Singh talking to people
He lost the general elections only twice, first in 1998 and second in 2014, both times to a BJP candidate. After losing in 1998, he formed his new party, Rashtriya Lok Dal, in 1999. This decision paid off and he again won from Baghpat seat and joined Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s coalition government and served as Agriculture Cabinet Minister. He introduced a credit linked subsidy scheme to increase cold storage capacity, which increased investment inflows.
Ajit Singh with Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Controversy
Verbal attack on PM Modi
In his last years of active politics, he came into limelight by verbally attacking Narendra Modi. In 2019, he made a verbal attack on Narendra Modi and said,
,He doesn’t lie… he just hasn’t told the truth till date… children are told to tell the truth, but his parents haven’t taught him… he is in favor of women, triple talaq, triple talaq… to his wife. Did not say divorce even once and left Deepak,
,This brother is such a smart and cunning man, if he had gone to Sri Lanka, he would have returned and said that it was he who killed Ravana. Because no one else in the country has done anything,
#Watch RLD chief Ajit Singh said on PM Modi: He does not lie..but he has not told the truth till date. Children are told to speak the truth, but their parents did not teach them. He is in favor of women, triple talaq, triple talaq. .Did not even once speak divorce to his wife and left her (3.4.19) pic.twitter.com/K6kDMcKcmN
– ANI UP/Uttarakhand (@ANINewsUP) 4 April 2019
property and properties
movable property
- Deposits in banks, financial institutions and non-banking financial companies: Rs 12,00,399
- Bonds, debentures and shares in companies: Rs 97,25,573
- Personal Loan/Advance given: Rs 42,15,615
Immovable property
- Agricultural land: Rs 9,06,97,666
- Residential Building: Rs 6,02,39,000
Note: The given estimates of movable and immovable assets are as per the year 2019.
net worth
Ajit’s net worth was estimated at Rs 16,61,25,602 for the financial year 2019-2020.
Death
COVID-19 has taken many lives across the world, and Ajit Singh was one of them. He was admitted to hospital on 20 April 2021 due to post Covid complications and died on 6 May 2021.
Chaudhary Saheb is no more!🙏🏽 pic.twitter.com/7cnLkf0c6K
-Jayant Singh (@jayantrld) 6 May 2021
Facts/General Knowledge
- While serving as the Industries Minister, Ajit Singh drafted a bill with Amar Nath Verma (Secretary of the Industries Ministry). The bill was drafted to curb the license raj, but other parties in the coalition did not support it and it went to the dustbin. Later, the same bill was passed by Narasimha Rao in 1991 to bring liberalization in the Indian economy.
- He was interested in everything related to agriculture and technology.
- Ajit’s favorite pastime was reading and listening to music.
- Ajit Singh often enjoyed smoking hookah.
Ajit Singh enjoying hookah
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn