How tussle with Atal Bihari Vajpayee cost Kalyan Singh dearly

Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh passed away at 89 on Saturday. Here is a sequence of events that explain how a tussle with the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee cost him dearly.

Kalyan Singh was the tallest OBC leader in the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). He became a Hindutva mascot during the Ram Temple movement. He was seen as a perfect blending of Mandal and Kamandal and became “Hindu-Hriday Samrat” for the party’s cadre. When the BJP came into power in UP, Kalyan Singh was the obvious choice as the first BJP chief minister of the most populous state of the country.