Late Virbhadra Singh shared excellent rapport with former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. 

He won three Lok Sabha elections under her leadership - 1967, 1971 and 1980.

She made him a Union Minister and held the post of Deputy Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation between 1976 and 1977. 

She again picked him up for the Union Government in 1980 and promoted him ase Minister of State for Industries, a post he held till 1983.

It was in 1983 that Singh for the first time assumed the post of the Chief Minister in Himachal Pradesh. Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, then Congress general secretary, had decided to replace then Chief Minister Ram Lal Thakur following his alleged involvement in the timber scam. Thakur was accused of sheltering the forest mafia

Singh became the Chief Minister despite stiff resistance by party colleague Sukh Ram, who was a tough competitor and a claimant. 

Thakur was later appointed Andhra Pradesh Governor. 

Singh successfully contested the by-elections from Thakur’s turf of Jubbal Kotkhai in 1983 and 1985 and won over his loyalists, forcing him to float the Him Jan Kranti Morcha that later merged with the Janata Dal. While Thakur defeated Singh from Jubbal Kotkhai, Raja Sahib survived by winning from Rohru.

Singh went on to hold the covered post for six times - from 1983 to 1985, from 1985 to 1990, from 1993 to 1998, from 2003 to 2007 and from 2012 to 2017.

In the 2017 assembly elections, the BJP wrested power from the Congress, but Singh won from Arki constituency in Solan district and remained a legislator till his death on 8 July this year at the age of 87.

In the pictures, Virbhadra Singh is seen with Indira Gandhi.

To be continued....