This is an accepted version of this page Digvijaya Singh (born 28 February 1947) is an Indian politician and a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha since 2014.

[15][16] In April 2014, he confirmed that he was in a relationship with a Rajya Sabha TV anchor Amrita Rai; they married in late August 2015.

[citation needed] Being the longest west-flowing river, the Narmada parikrama is a formidable spiritual exercise and challenge—an incredible journey of about 3,300 km.

His brother, Lakshman Singh, had been elected in 1993 as a Congress MLA in Madhya Pradesh from the same Raghogarh assembly constituency that Digivijaya had previously held.

Lakshman resigned from the seat in favour of Digvijaya, who needed to be elected to the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly in order to fulfill his role as Chief Minister.

[30] The Hindi Belt, of which Madhya Pradesh is a part, has a significant number of economically and socially disadvantaged Dalit and tribal communities.

Through his policies, which have evoked both strong support and criticism among academics, Singh targeted the prospects of those people during his first term in office.

These efforts attempted to arrest the declining support for the INC by those communities, who since the 1960s had increasingly been favouring the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Jana Sangh and its political successor, the BJP.

Sudha Pai says, "He was driven by both the political imperative to sustain the base of the party among these social groups and ... a commitment to improving their socio-economic position."

Among the measures introduced to achieve his aim were the Education Guarantee Scheme (EGS), redistribution of common grazing land (charnoi) to landless dalits and tribals, free electricity for farmers, the promotion of Panchayati Raj as a means of delegating power to villagers and a supplier diversity scheme which guaranteed that thirty per cent of government supplies would be purchased from the disadvantaged groups.

[31][32][a] Returning to the Raghogarh constituency for the 1998 elections,[34] Singh was re-elected and appointed by Sonia Gandhi to serve a second term as chief minister.

[45] Singh had claimed that it was desirable because the farmers of the state — who needed electricity to power water pumps[37] — had suffered three years of drought conditions.

He expressed a willingness to contest the 2014 Lok Sabha elections if Congress wanted him to do so; he also said that he would like to see his son as the incumbent of the Raghogarh constituency.

[51] In 2011, a charge sheet was submitted in court against him[52] but the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) determined in March 2014 that there was no case to answer.

[55] In the 2019 Indian general election, he ran for Lok Sabha in the constituency of Bhopal, but lost to Pragya Singh Thakur.

[56] In the 2024 Indian general election, he ran for Lok Sabha in the constituency of Rajgarh, and lost to BJP candidate Rodmal Nagar by a margin of 146,089 votes.

[61] Singh was Chief Minister of the state at the time and the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) blamed him for arresting farmers' leaders.

Singh later said that his statement should not be interpreted as support for or opposition to bin Laden, adding "I had merely said that the worst of criminals should be cremated according to their faith.

"[67] In March 2022, Digvijay Singh along with six others was sentenced for one year rigorous imprisonment by an Indore court in connection with clash with BJYM workers in 2011.

[68] Singh has said that the right-wing extremism of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) represented a grave threat to national unity.