Kalyan Singh cremated with full state honours
Rajnath Singh, Yogi Adityanath, Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami, Uma Bharti were among those present at the funeral.
AGRA: The mortal remains of former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh were consigned to flames with full state honours on the banks of the Ganga at Narora town in Bulandshahr district of western Uttar Pradesh on Monday.
Singh, also former governor of Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh, passed away in Lucknow on Saturday (August 21) after ailing for some time. He was 89.
His son Rajveer Singh, the BJP Lok Sabha member from Etah, lit the pyre around 4pm. He was accompanied by Kalyan Singh’s grandson Sandeep Singh, a minister of state in the UP government and MLA from Atrauli.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, his Uttarakhand counterpart Pushkar Singh Dhami, Union minister for women and child development Smriti Irani, former Union ministers Uma Bharti and Santosh Gangwar, deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya and UP BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh were also present at the funeral.
Yogi Adityanath personally
supervised the arrangements. He had reached Aligarh on Sunday evening and moved with the convoy that headed towards Atrauli near Madhauli, the ancestral village of Kalyan Singh, on Monday.
In Aligarh, Kalyan Singh’s mortal remains were kept at the Ahalya Bai Holkar stadium, where people paid their last respects.
In view of the large number of people turning up, his mortal remains were kept at Atrauli for three hours instead of two hours as planned initially.
Thereafter, the funeral cortege reached Narora from Atrauli around 3pm. Once again, there was a rush of people who paid homage to Kalyan Singh.
The chief minister repeatedly rose from his seat and appealed to the mourners to remain calm.
Kalyan Singh headed the BJP’s first government in Uttar Pradesh from1991-92 and he had a second term from 1997-99.
He was the chief minister of UP when the Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1992.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh applauded the major role played by Kalyan Singh in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and said that he was always blessed by Sri Ram. Rajnath Singh termed Kalyan Singh as an “unprecedented chief minister”.
Describing Kalyan Singh as an ideal leader, Yogi Adityanath said, “We have to follow the standards of ethics and values adopted by him.”
“Kalyan Singhji never hesitated in giving up power when it came to the Ram Janambhoomi issue,” the chief minister said.