Above: Octogenarian Saroj Kumari Singh, widow of Arjun Singh, arriving in a wheelchair in a Bhopal court/Photo courtesy: news18.com
The festering ties among the late Union minister Arjun Singh’s kin were revealed when his widow approached a court complaining that her two sons were harassing her
~By Rakesh Dixit in Bhopal
That tension had been simmering in the family of Congress stalwart late Arjun Singh over his palatial Kerwa Kothi in Bhopal for a long time was no secret in Madhya Pradesh’s political circles. However, nobody had imagined that the family feud would erupt in public so dramatically. Octogenarian Saroj Kumari Singh, widow of Arjun Singh, caused a stir as she arrived in a wheelchair in a Bhopal court on June 19 to file a complaint against her two sons—Abhimanyu Singh, a Bangalore-based businessman, and Ajay Singh, leader of Opposition in the MP assembly.
In her petition, Saroj Kumari, (83), accused her sons of harassing her and not letting her reside in her husband’s house in Bhopal. She filed the complaint under Section 19 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 in the court of judicial magistrate Gaurav Pragyan. She was accompanied by her daughter Veena Singh and NRI industrialist Sam Varma.
“My sons Abhimanyu Singh and Ajay Singh indulged in domestic violence against me and forced me out of my own house. They have refused to take care of my maintenance which compelled me to approach the court,” she said in her complaint. She also named Sunita Singh, Ajay Singh’s wife, in the complaint letter.
Saroj Singh or “Rani Sahiba” as she is called, is not a weak, ailing woman. She is well-known in Madhya Pradesh and credited with playing a key role in her husband’s political career when he served as MP’s chief minister thrice, governor, Union minister and AICC vice-president. The royal tag probably came from the fact that Arjun Singh’s father, Shiv Bahadur Singh, a former Congressman close to Jawaharlal Nehru, was the 26th “Rao” of Churhat, a branch of the Rewa royal line.
When Arjun Singh was alive, Saroj Kumari lived in their official Tughlaq Road bungalow in New Delhi. The UPA government let her retain the house even after Singh’s death, but after the NDA came to power, she was forced to vacate it and live in Greater Noida. She claimed that she had no place to stay after she vacated the property in Greater Noida. She also requested the court to grant her ex parte relief (relief before hearing the respondents) so that she could return to her house in Bhopal, her lawyer Dipesh Joshi said.
Later, in a statement to the media, Saroj reiterated her allegations, adding “my husband served the Congress his entire life and ensuring protection of women and assisting helpless persons was a matter of principle for him”. She alleged that her son Ajay Singh had set aside these principles of the Congress and forced her out of home. She claimed that she had so far refrained from filing a case against Ajay alias Rahul Bhaiya lest it cast a shadow on his political career. “I expected him to take care of his ailing mother and let her live with him in the Kerwa Kothi but, under influence of his wife Sunita, Rahul ig-nored my pleas,” she said in her petition.
The court, while accepting Saroj Singh’s petition, refrained from passing any interim order and listed the matter for July 19.
Home of Contention
Kerwa Kothi has been the bone of contention between the mother and son ever since its construction. Overlooking a picturesque dam and known as “Dev Shri”, the Kothi has had its own share of controversies.
Spread over 13.32 hectares, the sprawling mansion, adjacent orchard and farmhouse was transferred in Ajay Singh’s name on February 19, 2011, barely 23 days before his father Arjun Singh breathed his last in AIIMS on March 4.
Arjun Singh, as chief minister, had bought 4.4 hectares near Bhopal in three parts in the name of his wife and son Ajay Singh in November 1983. The Kothi is built on this land. Ajay Singh later expanded its area by buying an additional one hectare.
While it was being built, the Kothi attracted much controversy. Reports, many apocryphal, about its magnificence and opulence haunted Arjun Singh for a long time. Even then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi sought details of the Kothi. He was apparently satisfied with Arjun Singh’s explanation about the money invested in its construction. However, the opposition kept raking up the issue. During a debate in the assembly, Arjun Singh claimed the house cost him Rs 15 lakh. But opposition leaders claimed it was worth no less than Rs 5 crore at 1983 market prices.
A high court judge in 1989 made a telling observation about Kerwa Kothi: “…Arjun Singh owes an explanation to the nation to show at what cost he has acquired and built his mansion at Kerwa Dam and from where and how he got funds for this.” In affidavits in the 2013 assembly and 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Ajay Singh (he unsuccessfully contested from Satna parliamentary seat) mentioned the Kerwa Kothi and claimed its market price was Rs 5 crore.
Ajay Singh has termed his mother’s action as a political conspiracy against him. He reportedly said: “I’m in the process of filing a no-confidence motion against the state government which I expect to be discussed during the monsoon session staring from June 25. The last time I brought a no-confidence motion, the deputy leader of Opposition, Rakesh Chaudhary, jumped the Congress ship in a high voltage drama inside the Vidhan Sabha.”
He accused his sister Veena Singh of hatching a conspiracy against him with assistance from his political opponents. Later, he issued a detailed statement calling his estranged sister as the root of the discord between the mother and sons. He alluded to his sister as an “enemy”, “people who tutor and terrorise” and “unscrupulous elements”.
The dispute between the siblings, which goes back two decades, hit the headlines first in 2009 before the Lok Sabha elections. While campaigning for Congress candidate Inderjit Patel in the Sidhi Lok Sabha seat, Arjun Singh, who was then Union HRD minister, wept on the dais at a public meeting. Tears rolled down his face as his wife Saroj Singh campaigned for Veena who was contesting the same seat as an independent.
The Congress high-command had wanted Ajay Singh, who was the MLA from Churhat, to contest from Sidhi in 2009. But Veena staked claim to her father’s political legacy. Due to the family dispute, the high-command decided to field Inderjit Patel instead of any of Arjun Singh’s children. Veena filed her nomination as an independent candidate from Sidhi. While Ajay Singh campaigned for Inderjit Patel, his mother canvassed for Veena. Arjun Singh kept away from campaigning but towards the end of it, came to the Congress’ dais to support Patel.
It was here that he wept and gave only a short speech, telling voters to vote for the hand symbol. Veena Singh lost the election, but so did Inderjit Patel by a margin of less than 65,000 votes against BJP’s Govind Prasad Mishra. The Congress blamed Arjun Singh for his failure to prevent his daughter from contesting. It was, many believe, one of the reasons why he was not made a minister when the UPA, under Manmohan Singh, returned to power in 2009.
Subsequently, the bitterness intensified to such an extent that Ajay Singh, the youngest of Arjun Singh’s three children, was restricted from entering his father’s official residence at Tughlaq Road in New Delhi.
The siblings had also fought bitterly over the rights of their father’s autobiography, A Grain of Sand in the Hourglass of Time. It was published shortly after the leader’s death in March 2011.
Ajay Singh said in a poignant statement that his mother was, no doubt, aged but not an orphan as she had two sons. “Soon after my father’s demise in 2011, I had been trying to bring my mother to Bhopal but in vain. There was some power which was influencing her against me. Unfortu-nately, that power belongs to my own family.” He added: “Now that the matter has reached the court, all I will say is that I am extremely upset over the allegations against me because whatever my mother said is not true. Time will do justice to me.”
The allegations against Ajay Singh cast an immediate political shadow on him because he was in the process of preparing a charge-sheet against the Shivraj Singh government which was to be presented in the state assembly in the monsoon session that began on June 25.
Both the state unit of the BJP and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan are now taking a keen interest in the family feud.
The chief minister strongly denied Ajay Singh’s allegation that the BJP was instigating the family discord. Chouhan told local reporters that he had even offered advice to him saying that there is no bigger asset than a mother in this world. “Mother is like God. She (Saroj Singh) is the wife of late Arjun Singh, a national leader, and is 83 years old. Will she do so at the behest of any government? This allegation is completely cheap.” BJP national vice-president Prabhat Jha also accused Ajay Singh of failing in his duties as a son.
However, contrary to Chouhan’s clarification, members of the BJP women’s wing staged a demonstration in front of Kerwa Kothi on June 24, demanding that Ajay Singh bring his mother back to live with him in Bhopal.
One wonders who will win the battle for this mother’s heart?