Urmila Singh was born in Phingeshwar village in Raipur district, now located in Chhattisgarh state, into a landowning family of central India, which also produced freedom fighters and social reformers.

Urmila's great-grandfather, Raja Natwar Singh (alias Lalla Shah) of Haridaypur, was a freedom fighter, who was executed by the British rulers.

Virendra Bahadur Singh became a prominent Congress party political and a member of the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly, elected from the areas that his family had previously ruled for several centuries.

After the sudden early death of her husband, Urmila Singh stepped into the political arena to contest the assembly seat previously held by him.

In recognition of her services to the congress party, the congress-led central government appointed her governor of Himachal Pradesh in 2010.