Digvijaya Singh | |
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Singh in 2002
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MP of Rajya Sabha for Madhya Pradesh | |
Assumed office 10 April 2014 |
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Constituency | Madhya Pradesh |
15th Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh | |
In office 7 December 1993 – 8 December 2003 |
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Preceded by | Sunderlal Patwa |
Succeeded by | Uma Bharati |
Constituency | Raghogarh |
Personal details | |
Born |
Indore, Holkar State (now in Madhya Pradesh), British India |
28 February 1947
Political party | Indian National Congress |
Spouse(s) | Asha Digvijaya Singh (1969–2013) Amrita Rai (2015–present) |
Alma mater | Shri Govindram Seksaria Institute of Technology and Science (SGSITS) Indore |
Profession | Politician, agriculturist |
Religion | Hinduism |
Website | DigvijayaSingh.in |
Digvijaya Singh (born 28 February 1947) is an Indian politician and a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha. He is also currently a General Secretary of the Indian National Congress party's All India Congress Committee. Previously, he had served as the 9th Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, a central Indian state, for two terms from 1993 to 2003. Prior to that he was a minister in Chief Minister Arjun Singh's cabinet, during 1980–84.
Singh was born in Indore in the erstwhile princely state of Holkar (now a part of Madhya Pradesh) of British India, on 28 February 1947. His father, Balbhadra Singh, was the Raja of Raghogarh (under Gwalior State), presently known as Guna district of Madhya Pradesh and was a former Jana Sangh MP from the Raghogarh constituency. He was educated at The Daly College, Indore and the Shri Govindram Seksaria Institute of Technology and Science (SGSITS) Indore, where he completed his B.E. in Mechanical Engineering.
Since 1969, he was married to Asha Singh, who died in 2013, and with whom he has four daughters and a son. In April 2014, he confirmed that he was in a relationship with a Rajya Sabha TV anchor Amrita Rai; they married in late August 2015. He is a Hindu.
Singh was president of the Raghogarh Nagar palika (a municipal committee) between 1969 and 1971. An offer in 1970 from Vijayaraje Scindia for him to join the Jana Sangh was not taken up and he subsequently joined the Congress party. He became a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) as the party's representative for the Raghogarh Vidhan Sabha constituency of the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly in the 1977 elections. This was the same constituency that his father had won in 1951 as an independent candidate with support from the Jana Sangh. Digvijaya was later re-elected from the Raghogarh constituency and became a Minister of State and later a Cabinet Minister in the Madhya Pradesh state government led by Arjun Singh, whom he has called his mentor, between 1980–84.