FILE photo: Jaswant Singh
Forty seven years after making his debut in electoral politics as an independent, former union minister Jaswant Singh has once again entered the race for Lok Sabha, as an independent. In 1967, contesting the national elections for the first time, Mr Singh, then a lanky young lad of 29, got a mere 18,564 votes in Bikaner in Rajasthan, and lost. At the age of 76, he has taken a calculated gamble by turning against his party, and making a bid for a seat in the Lok Sabha from his home constituency of Barmer.
(In Barmer, it's BJP vs veteran Jaswant Singh. He will run as independent)He says he has filed his nomination paper to fight for "the honour of the people of Barmer." Whether the electorate reposes its faith in him will be known only on May 16, when the counting for the 543 Lok Sabha seats is taken up by the Election Commission. Having courted trouble with the BJP's central leadership earlier - he had been expelled from the party in 2009 for lavishing praise on the founder of Pakistan in his book "Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence" - he was unable to regain his party's trust in an era which has seen the eclipse of his mentors, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani. Mr Singh, for refusing to change his mind about running as an independent candidate, has been expelled by the BJP for six years.
Known for his trademark shoulder-flapped shirts and his rich baritone voice, Mr Singh has enjoyed a rich political career. He has served five terms in the Rajya Sabha, and another four in the Lok Sabha. He contested the 2009 general election as a BJP candidate from Darjeeling, and won, primarily because of the support offered by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, or the GJM. His request to allow him to fight his last-ever election from Barmer, a constituency in Rajasthan which is home to his ancestral village Jasol, was denied by the BJP top brass.
In the Atal-Advani era, it is doubtful whether his request could have been rejected. The former armyman-turned-politician enjoyed a lot of clout during the days of former Prime Minister Vajpayee, and later during Mr Advani's stewardship of the BJP.
But it was former Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat who persuaded Mr Singh to join the BJP. Having seen action in two wars, Mr Singh quit the Indian Army after the Indo-Pak skirmish of 1965 "in protest against the policies of the then government of India." His political future looked bleak after his failed bid to enter Parliament in 1967, and it was Mr Shekhawat who convinced him to join the BJP.
He entered the Rajya Sabha for the first time in 1980. In 1996, when Mr Vajpayee became the prime minister for a 13-day stint, he asked Mr Singh to take charge of the finance ministry. But it was his innings as India's foreign minister from 1998 to 2002 that is most talked about. He not only steered the country successfully through the turbulent days of the sanctions imposed by the West after the Pokhran nuclear blasts of 1998, but also played a big role in taking India's ties with the United States to a higher plane. His protracted engagement with the American Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott is considered a high point in Indian diplomacy.
But Mr Singh was also pilloried for his decision to escort three high-ranking militants to Kandahar in Afghanistan to ensure the release of 180 passengers and crew of Indian Airlines Flight 814, which had been hijacked by five Pakistani elements soon after its take-off from Kathmandu in Nepal on December 24, 1999. The militants-for-hostages swap marked one of the lowest points in the six-year-long NDA rule.
Mr Singh was shifted to the finance ministry in 2002, and remained there till 2004, when the Vajpayee government was voted out. He was made Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha in 2004.