Ajit Singh (Indian Politician) - Political Career

Political Career

Ajit Singh entered into his political life from a huge rally at TownHall MuzaffarNagar in Feb/March 1986, where he was presented with a Green Colored Maruti Gypsy, This huge rally was organized by then City President of LokDal Shri Jamil Ahmad Advocate and then Distt President of Lokdal -Harinder Malik, after this rally he did not look back at his political career Ajit Singh first entered Parliament as a Rajya Sabha member for Uttar Pradesh in 1986, and is a seven time member of the Lok Sabha. Singh formed his own faction of the Lok Dal called Lok Dal (Ajit) in 1987 and a year later merged it with the Janata Party, as part of a deal by which he became President of the merged party. When the Janata Dal was formed by a merger of the Janata Party, H. N. Bahuguna's faction of the Lok Dal and the Jan Morcha, Singh was elected its secretary general. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1989 and re-elected in 1991.

He became a Union minister for Industry in 1989-90 when he was inducted into the National Front government of Vishwanath Pratap Singh.

In the mid-nineties, he moved to the Congress Party, then in power, with a large slice of the Janata Dal MPs. He went on to become the food minister under the Congress government (1995–96) when P. V. Narasimha Rao was the prime minister. After winning the 1996 Lok Sabha poll on a Congress ticket, he left the party within a year to form the Bharatiya Kisan Kamgar Party. He resigned from Lok Sabha membership and contested the consequent by-election as a BKKP candidate in Baghpat, defeating his nearest Indian National Congress candidate Mukhiya Gurjar.

Singh lost the 1998 election, the only election he has lost in his political career, to Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Som Pal but avenged the defeat in 1999 after floating his new party, the Rashtriya Lok Dal.

In July 2001, his party tied up with the Bharatiya Janata Party in upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly elections and he joined the BJP-led government as the important Cabinet Minister for Agriculture. He subsequently joined an alliance between the BJP and Bahujan Samaj Party. In May 2003, only a few months before the BJP and BSP parted ways, Ajit withdrew from the government and the Cabinet. That led to the collapse of the bsp government.

When Mulayam Singh Yadav came to power, Singh supported him up until early 2007, after which he left the government due to differences on farmers policies. His party contested 2009 loksabha-election under Bharatiya Janata Party led National Democratic Alliance and he was re-elected to the 15th Lok Sabha from Baghpat.

RLD leader Ajit Singh struck a deal with the UPA just before assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. On December 18, 2011 Ajit Singh was sworn in as the new civil aviation minister in the Manmohan Singh led government.

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