After graduating from an Ayurveda college, Dr Raman Singh began serving the people by providing free consultation to poor patients at the Saturday market in his hometown Kawardha. Years later, the soft-spoken BJP leader’s welfare schemes for the poor helped his party retain power in the crucial Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, successfully beating the anti-incumbency factor.

Dr Raman Singh’s ascent to power came about almost by luck in the state’s maiden Assembly elections in 2003. While a number of other leaders were reluctant to take up the post of state BJP president, he accepted the challenge to take on the then ruling Congress led by Ajit Jogi and resigned as a minister of state in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee ministry.

Although BJP leader Dilip Singh Judeo was a strong contender for chief ministership after the polls, the responsibility fell on Singh, as Judeo was trapped in a ‘cash on camera’ scam in the run up to the polls, held for the first time after the state was carved out of Madhya Pradesh.

Once he became Chief Minister, Raman Singh soon built up a reputation as an upright politician — dubbed ‘Mr Clean’ by some — against whom even the Opposition could not level any allegations of corruption over the past five years. He also maintained a distance from intra-party bickering and developed a cordial relation with the Congress Government at the Centre. He also took care to keep the Congress in the state in good humour and did not adopt a confrontational approach with Opposition leaders, although there was criticism that he allowed the bureaucracy to gained dominance over a number of members in his council of ministers.

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