Raja Virbhdra singh

 The Legend never dies :

Early Life  : 

Virbhadra Singh was born on 23 June 1934 at Sarahan, Shimla district in the royal Rajput family of the erstwhile princely state of Bushahr. He was the 122nd titular Raja of Bushahr from 1947 until 1971, when, by the 26th Amendment to the Constitution of India, the privy purses of the princes were abolished and official recognition of their titles came to an end.

Singh was educated at Colonel Brown Cambridge School, Dehradun, St. Edward's School, Shimla and Bishop Cotton School, Shimla and later obtained a BA Honours degree from St. Stephen's College, Delhi.

He was married to Ratna Kumari, princess of Jubbal in May 1954. They had four daughters including Abhilasha Kumari a former judge who served on the High Court of Gujarat from 2006 to 2018. Ratna Kumari died in 1983 after prolonged sickness.

In 1986, he was married for the second time, to Pratibha Singh, princess of Keonthal. Pratibha was elected twice to the Lok Sabha from Mandi, for first time in 2004 and later in a bypoll in 2013. They both had a daughter and a son. His daughter Aparajitha Singh is married to Punjab Chief Minister Capt. Amarinder Singh's grandson. His son Vikramaditya Singh is currently serving as Member of Legislative Assembly from Shimla Rural constituency.

Political career :

Singh gained a seat in the Lok Sabha—which is the lower house of the Parliament of India—in the Indian general elections of 1962. He repeated that success in the elections of 1967 and 1971. He was again elected to the Lok Sabha in 1980 and a further election to that house came in 2009, following an absence from the intervening two Lok Sabhas. His wife had served a term following her victory in the 2004 elections.

He was a member of the Indian Delegation to the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1976.

Between 1976 and 1977, Singh held the national office of Deputy Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation in central cabinet. He was Minister of State for Industries between 1980 and 1983. From May 2009 until January 2011, he held the cabinet post of Minister for Steel. He then became cabinet minister with responsibility for Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, until resigning from office in June 2012.

Aside from his role in national politics, Singh had also been elected on seven occasions to the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly. The first occasion was in a by-election in October 1983, when he was returned for the Jubbal-Kotkhai constituency. He won that seat again in the 1985 elections. Thereafter, he was elected from the Rohru constituency in 1990, 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2007 and in 2012 from Shimla rural assembly constituency.

Singh became the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh for the first time in April 1983 and held the post until March 1990. He was again appointed to the role between December 1993 and March 1998; and once more from March 2003. With reappointments within those years, this record amounted to him holding the office on five occasions.

Between 1998 and 2003, Singh was Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly. He was president of the Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee in 1977, 1979 and 1980 and from 26 August 2012 to December 2012. In July 2012, he quit all key party posts at a crucial time prior to the state elections of November 2012. It has been reported that the trigger for the resignations was his exclusion from the Screening Committee for short-listing of election candidates. Singh was appointed to lead the party on the eve of the November 2012 elections and did so with success. The party then agreed to him becoming Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh for a record sixth time. His party lost majority in the 2017 elections and he tendered his resignation afterwards.