Former Union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh dies; Prez, PM pay moving tributes

A galaxy of leaders including President Ramnath Kovind, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and RJD president Lalu Prasad condoled his death. "The passing away of Raghuvansh Prasad Singh is tragic.

Former Union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, under whose stewardship of the rural development ministry the ambitious NREGA was launched by the Manmohan Singh government, died at AIIMS in the national capital where he was admitted for treatment of post-COVID complications, a close aide said. Singh, a socialist stalwart, was 74, and his survived by two sons and a daughter.

He had fallen critically ill on Friday night and was put on ventilator in the ICU. Singh became breathless and developed other complications before breathing his last at 11 am, Kedar Yadav, a close associate of Singh told PTI by phone from New Delhi.

Avadhesh Kumar Singh, the former Union minister's representative in Vaishali, said his mortal remains will be flown to Patna around 8 pm on Sunday. He will be cremated with full state honours at Hasanpur Ghat on the banks of the Ganga, about 15 km from his village Shahpur in Vaishali district.

Singh, a long-time friend and associate of RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, had resigned from the party on Thursday and speculation was rife that he could join Bihar's ruling JD(U) ahead of the state assembly polls likely in October-November. "Since the death of Jannayak Karpoori Thakur, I stood behind you for 32 years, but not now," he had said in his brief one-line resignation letter to Prasad, who is serving sentences in four fodder scam cases in Ranchi.

Hours later, Prasad wrote back from jail in complete disbelief. "I don't believe....a letter purportedly written by you is on social media. I, my family, and the RJD family that have nursed the party want you to get well soon and be amongst us," Prasad wrote back.

"For four decades, we have together discussed political, social and even family matters. You get well soon and we will discuss again. You are not going anywhere, you understand," Prasad wrote in a handwritten letter that had the stamp of the prison authority. A galaxy of leaders including President Ramnath Kovind, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and RJD president Lalu Prasad condoled his death.

"The passing away of Raghuvansh Prasad Singh is tragic. An outstanding leader rooted to ground, Raghuvansh Babu was a true stalwart with phenomenal understanding of rural India. With his spartan and sagely lifestyle, he enriched public life. Condolences to his family & followers," Kovind tweeted. Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu condoled the death of the former Union minister, saying he will always be remembered for his role in implementing the rural employment guarantee scheme.

In a moving tribute to the departed leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who received the news of Singh's death when he was inaugurating a string of petroleum sector schemes for Bihar, called him a grassroots leader with deep understanding of poverty and problems of the poor. "I will request Nitish Kumar to execute the development projects he wrote about in the letter. Let's together--the state and the Centre--fulfil his wishes," Modi said while referring to Singh's letter to the chief minister he had sent on Thursday about development projects in Vaishali Lok Sabha constituency which he represented for five successive terms.

"I am deeply saddened by the death of senior Bihar politician Raghuvansh Babu. His entire life was devoted to the ideas of Lohia ji and Karpoori Thakur ji. "His dedication to the welfare of the poor and deprived class will always be remembered. I express my condolences to his family. Om Shanti," Union Home Minister Amit Shah said in a tweet in Hindi.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who spoke to Singh's son Satya Prakash soon after his death, called it a "personal loss". "His death is a personal loss to me and an irreparable loss to political, social, educational life of Bihar and the socialist movement," Kumar said in a condolence message.

He spoke to the state's resident commissioner in New Delhi and instructed him to make arrangements for bringing back Singh's mortal remains to Patna. The last rites of the departed leader will be performed following the COVID-19 protocol in place across the country, a CMO statement said.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad said he was rendered "speechless" on receiving the news of Singh's death. "I had told you only the day before yesterday that you are not going anywhere. But you have gone so far away. I am speechless, I am sad. You will always be in my memory," he tweeted in Hindi.