Buta Singh was born on 21 March 1934 in Mazhabi Sikh family at Mustafapur, Jalandhar district, Punjab, British India. He was educated at Lyallpur Khalsa College in Jalandhar, from where he was awarded a B.A., and at Guru Nanak Khalsa College in Bombay, where he earned a M.A. Singh then gained a Ph.D. from Bundelkhand University. He married Manjit Kaur in 1964; the couple had three children. He worked as journalist before joining politics. He fought his first elections as an Akali Dal member and joined the Indian National Congress in the late 1960s at the time when that party was split.
Political career
Buta Singh was first elected to the Indian Parliament from the Sadhna constituency. He has been involved with the Congress party since Jawaharlal Nehru was Prime Minister and he was close to former Indian Prime MinistersIndira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. He has been elected eight times as a member of the Lok Sabha in 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 12th and 13th Lok Sabha. He became General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee General Secretary, Home Minister of India and later Governor of Bihar. Other portfolios that he has held include those for railways, commerce, parliamentary affairs, sports, shipping, agriculture, communications and housing. He was chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes from 2007–2010. He has written a book Punjabi Speaking State - A Critical Analysis and a collection of articles on Punjabi literature and Sikh history. Indira Ganhi chose him to select a new party symbol when Congress was split. He was very closely involved with her in Operation Blue Star and as a minister he oversaw reconstruction of the Golden Temple following that exercise. His name was also in the finalists for the post of President of India along with Giani Zail Singh in the Indira era. He was also the chairperson of Asian Games organizing committee when the competition was held in India in 1982. He was involved in the Indian general election of 2014 from Jalore District.
Controversies
In 1998, as Communications Minister he was indicted in the JMM bribery case, and forced to resign. As the Governor of Bihar, Singh's decision to recommend the dissolution of the Bihar Assembly in 2005 was sharply criticised by the Supreme Court of India. The court ruled that Singh had acted in haste and misled the federal cabinet because he did not want a particular party claiming to form the government, to come to power. Singh however claimed that the party was resorting to unfair means to secure support to form the government. On 26 January 2006 Singh sent a fax to Abdul Kalam offering to resign his post. The next day he left office and was replaced temporarily by West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi.
