Popularly known as “Raja sahib’ Virbhadra Singh was born on 23 June 1934 in the royal family of the erstwhile princely state of Rampur Bushahr ( now in Shimla district) .

He studied at Colonel Brown Cambridge School, Dehradun, St Edward’s School, Shimla, and Bishop Cotton School, Shimla, before earning a BA (Honours) degree from St Stephen’s College in Delhi.

He was elected to the Lok Sabha at the young age of 28. He was also known as the modern architect of Himachal Pradesh.

A five-time MP, three-time union minister, six-time Chief Minister and four-time state Congress President, Virbhadra Singh had remained an eminent figure in the state’s politics.

It was his commitment to the people of the state, its development he always preferred to remain in the state politics.

Virbhadra Singh had the distinction of having worked with all Prime Ministers --  Jawahar Lal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, PV Narasimha Rao, HD Deve Gowda, Inder Kumar Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi -- in various capacities both at the Centre as a Union Minister and a Member of Parliament, and in the state as the Chief Minister.

In his over-half-a-century-long political career, Virbhadra faced electoral defeat only on two occasions. He had to taste defeat at the hands of former CM Ram Lal Thakur when he lost the Assembly election from Jubbal-Kotkhai in 1990 even though Virbhadra made it to the Assembly as he had also contested from Rohru. He also lost one Lok Sabha election from Mandi in 1977 at the hands of Ganga Singh of the Janata Party.

The late leader would often say that he joined politics to serve the people as the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru himself fielded on the Congress ticket in the 1962 Lok Sabha election from Mahasu seat.

Singh died on 8 July 2021 in Shimla after a prolonged illness at the age of 87 years. 

In the pictures, Virbhadra Singh is seen with former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi whom he had described a source of inspiration for generations.
In the first picture, late Congress leader Pandit Sant Ram can also be seen.
To be continued....