Narayan Dharam Singh (Kannada: ನಾರಾಯಣ್ ಧರಮ್ ಸಿಂಗ್, Hindi: नारायण धर्म सिंग), (born December 25, 1936), was the 17th Chief Minister of Karnataka state in India and a former Lok Sabha member. He was sworn into office on May 28, 2004, and left office on February 3, 2006. He represents Congress (I) in the state. The coalition government formed by the Congress (I) with the help of Janata Dal (Secular) came to an end in February, 2006 when H. D. Kumaraswamy and B. S. Yeddyurappa engineered the downfall of the Dharam Singh administration.
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Dharam Singh was born in Nelogi village of Jevargi taluk, Gulbarga District) in Karnataka state. He comes from a small numbered Gurjar community in the state.[1] Dharam Singh has an MA and LLB degrees from Osmania University, Hyderabad. He was an advocate by education and a politician by profession. He is married to Smt Prabhavati Dharamsingh. He has two sons Vijaysingh and Dr.Ajaysingh and a daughter Priyadarshini. He has six grandchildren Aarnav, Anushka, Vikramaditya, Aryaveer, Saina and Arhanjay.
Dharam Singh has emerged as one of the front-ranking leaders of North Karnataka region, winning from the backward Jewargi Assembly constituency for eight consecutive terms.[1] For the low profile, controversy-shy but an astute politician, Narayan Singh Dharam Singh, occupying the coveted Chief Minister's post has come as a dream come true in his four-decade long checkered political career.
A sober political leader by all standards, Singh has earned the sobriquet "ajatha shatru" (a man without enemies) and is known for taking things as they come.
Hailing from a microscopic Gurjar community in the State, Singh has emerged as one of the front-ranking leaders of North Karnataka region, winning from the backward Jewargi Assembly constituency for eight consecutive terms.
Endowed with vast political and at least two decades of administrative experience, Singh has been one of the top commanders of the Congress for his organizational skills.
Affectionately known as "sweet hearted" in his close circles, he missed the chief minister's chair by a whisker in 1999, when the Congress chose to install the then KPCC (Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee) President S M Krishna who coasted the party to victory in polls.
As KPCC President earlier, Singh has played a key role in reviving the flagging fortunes of the Congress, which was then headed at the national level by late Sitaram Kesri, for whom Singh was said to be his favorite.
Avoiding getting entangled in controversies is one thing Singh has scrupulously followed throughout his political career, which began as an independent corporator in Gulbarga City Municipal Council.
Later in the late 1960s, he joined the Congress and remained a staunch loyalist since then, without deserting the party even when it passed through its worst times at different stages.
He did not follow in the footsteps of his mentor former chief minister late D Devaraj Urs when he broke away from the Congress and floated his own outfit, nor when his close friend and another former chief minister S Bangarappa resigned from the party.
After the Congress was voted to power with comfortable majority, Singh, unlike his close friend and senior minister Mallikarjun Kharge, did not throw his hat in the ring when the issue of choice of chief minister came.
"If everyone elects me unanimously, I will take up the post. I don't want to engage in competition," he had said then.
Without showing any signs of disappointment, Singh joined the Krishna ministry and handled the Public Works Department portfolio.
On earlier occasions as a minister, he had deftly managed the portfolios of Home, Excise, Social Welfare, Urban Development and Revenue.
Apart from his four-decade long association in State politics, Singh was also a Lok Sabha member once from Gulbarga Parliamentary constituency in 1980, thus having a brush with national politics for a brief period.
He gave up the Gulbarga Lok Sabha seat to accommodate C.M. Stephen, the then Union Home Minister in the Indira Gandhi Cabinet, after he lost the election in Delhi to Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Known for his adaptability, he had worked in the ministries of late R Gundu Rao, Bangarappa, Veerendra Patil and Krishna.
He is the second leader from Gulbarga to become the chief minister after late Veerendra Patil. However he failed to hold on to his constituency for a record ninth time in the recently concluded Assembly elections losing to a political lightweight - Doddappagouda Patil Naribol from the Bharatiya Janata Party with a margin of 52 votes.
In the recently held Loksabha elections 2009, Dharam Singh contested from Bidar constituency and emerged victorious defeating a political heavyweight Mr Gurupadappa Nagamarpalli by a margin of 39,619 votes.
The Lokayukta of Karnataka Justice Nitte Santosh Hegde in 2008 has found Dharam Singh and 11 other officials guilty of causing a loss to the State exchequer owing to irregularities in the mining sector. The Lokayukta report indicts Dharam Singh of causing loss of Rs. 23.22 crore. According to the report, Dharam Singh is at fault for allowing illegal mining in “patta” lands.[2] The Lokayukta has also asked for the amount caused as loss to be recovered from Dharam Singh.[3]
| Preceded by S.M. Krishna |
Chief Minister of Karnataka 28-May-2004 - 02-Feb-2006 |
Succeeded by H. D. Kumaraswamy |
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