Express News Service
LUCKNOW: An era of politics dominated by strong Hindutva narrative in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has come to an end with the demise of its stalwart and former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Kalyan Singh, 89, after a prolonged illness, here on Saturday. Singh’s last assignment was as Governor of Rajasthan after which he had rejoined BJP to make a come back to active politics but not the electoral politics.
The veteran BJP leader was admitted at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) on July 4 after being referred from the Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences where he was admitted on July 3 on complaints of reduced consciousness and renal infection.
As per the official sources of SGPGIMS, Kalyan Singh passed away due to sepsis and multi-organ failure.
A team of senior consultants from critical care medicine, cardiology, nephrology, endocrinology and neurology had been attending to him at SGPGIMS and UP CM Yogi Adityanath had been visiting the veteran leader frequently.
According to SGPIMS director Prof RK Dhiman, Singh continued to remain on life support system and he was placed on dialysis on Friday. Singh’s blood pressure was low and he was not passing urine normally.
After completing his tenure of five years as Rajasthan Governor, Kalyan Singh had come back to Uttar Pradesh in 2019 and had rejoined the BJP formally signalling the return of party’s backward face to active politics. Kalyan Singh was Rajasthan’s first governor in five decades to complete his five-year-termin the gubernatorial office.
In fact, Kalyan Singh drew his political stature within the BJP and outside by spearheading the temple movement. He emerged within the party as the OBC leader and a Hindutva mascot during the Ram Temple movement which made him the obvious choice as the first BJP chief minister of the most populous state in 1991.
It was under his tenure as UP CM that the demolition of disputed structure took place in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992 which led to the dismissal of his government in UP and three other BJP governments in different states.
Interestingly, Kalyan Singh was the first BJP leader to be arrested for leading the Ram Temple movement in the state in 1989 when the Mandal politics was at its peak.
While leading the Ram Temple movement, Kalyan united several smaller OBC castes like binds, mallahs and kashyaps in the name of Hindutva for a national cause. Kalyan Singh was named as one of the accused in the Babri demolition conspiracy case that was investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation. When the case was revived in April 2017 on the Supreme Court’s orders, he was left out due to the constitutional immunity for governors from standing trial.
Kalyan Singh, who had twice been chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, he left the party twice following his differences with the BJP leadership.
Despite his advancing age, Kalyan Singh, a Lodh (OBC), whose son Rajveer is a Lok Sabha MP and grandson Sandeep, a minister in Yogi Adityanath government, was still considered to be key backward leader whose name was still respected within his community.