Newsmaker: Buta Singh

Man with nine lives

Buta Singh

For someone who is known for getting into trouble more than anything else, Buta Singh's political career seems remarkably long. He has been associated with various parties.

He was with the Shiromani Akali Dal in the 1960s, then with the Congress in the 1970s and 80s and later had a stint with the NDA in the 1990s before going back to the Congress fold.

The secret of his success appears to be his ability to convince his political masters of his usefulness even as he involves them into controversies. His stint as the governor of Bihar that ended ignominiously is just a case in point.

Buta Singh started his political career with the Akali Dal in the 1960s only to become its staunchest critic when he joined the Congress. He was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1962 from Punjab and has since been elected eight times to the House.

He first became a junior minister in the Indira Gandhi government in 1974. He remained rock-steady in his loyalty to the Gandhi family throughout the emergency period and its aftermath, and was rewarded with the post of AICC general secretary between 1978 and 1980.

After the Congress came back to power in 1980, he was given various portfolios to handle from time to time "" shipping and transport, supply and rehabilitation and sports and parliamentary affairs.

His justification of Operation Blue Star in 1984 resulted in his being ostracised by the Sikh community. While this did not affect Singh's political career, he made suitable amends by cleaning shoes outside gurudwaras as an act of penance.

Strangely enough, the Bharatiya Janata Party owes its political success in large part to Buta Singh. For, it was Singh as home minister in the Rajiv Gandhi government who got the shilanyas done at the Ram Janmabhoomi site. This resulted in the secular vote deserting the Congress for the third front camp and the consolidation of the upper caste vote in favour of the BJP.

So grateful was the BJP that when Buta Singh won as an independent candidate from Rajasthan in 1998 after being thrown out of the Congress, he was made commerce minister in the NDA government.

Singh resigned after being chargesheeted in the Jain hawala scam. With nowhere to go, he returned to the Congress fold in 2000. But, he was still grateful to the BJP or so it seemed.

The NDA had failed to get the majority in Bihar, yet with some arithmetic it was set to stake a claim to form the government. Buta Singh's recommendation to impose President's rule in Bihar after the April elections in the state meant that the NDA got the moral high ground to come back with a clear majority in the November elections.

This leads to one obvious question: With such political ineptness, how is it that Buta Singh is one of the longest surviving politicians in the country, and that too in party like the Congress.

Like many other politicians, a large part of Buta Singh's career seems to be based on a combination of luck and timing "" of miraculously being at the right place when a job opportunity surfaced.

This latest debacle as the Bihar governor, however, will not be forgotten so easily. But then with Buta Singh one never knows.