Personal Life
Virbhadra Singh was born on 23 June 1934 at Sarahan, Shimla in a Rajput family. His father was Sir Padam Singh and Virbhadra was thus heir to the princely state of Bushahr. He succeeded to the position of king of the state at the age of 13 in 1947.
Singh was educated at the Colonel Brown Cambridge School in Dehradun and at Bishop Cotton School in Simla. Following this, he attended St. Stephen's College, Delhi, from which he obtained a BA Honours degree, and then pursued a post-graduate course at Delhi University.
On 2 June 1954, Singh married Princess Ratna Kumari, the daughter of Raja Jubbal Digvijay Chandra. The couple had a son and five daughters, of whom four daughters survive: Princesses Abhilasha, Jyotsna, Anuradha and Meenakshi. In 1985 he married Pratibha Singh, with whom he had a further son and daughter.
Outside of politics, Singh has involvement with various social and cultural bodies. A consequence of these interests is that he has been president of the Sanskrit Sahitya Sammelan and of the Himachal Pradesh branch of the Friends of the Soviet Union.
He is known as Gareevon Ka Maseeha in his home state because public grievances are heard by him directly and he maintains direct contact with the public.
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