Shiv Charan Mathur

Shiv Charan Mathur

Shiv Charan Mathur (14 February 1926 – 25 June 2009) was a politician from Rajasthan. A leader of the Indian National Congress, he was Chief Minister of Rajasthan from 1981 to 1985 and again from 1988 to 1989; later, he was Governor of Assam from 2008 to 2009.

Mathur became Chief Minister of Rajasthan on 14 July 1981 and held that post until 23 February 1985. Subsequently he was Chief Minister again from 20 January 1988 to 4 December 1989. In 2003 he was elected as a MLA from Mandalgarh (Bhilwara).

Despite not having achieved mass appeal, Mathur gained high office via his unique aptitude and with key support from the Congress party's inner sanctum .

He was appointed as Governor of Assam in 2008, and he remained in that post until his death from cardiac arrest on 25 June 2009.

Positions held

General Secretary, Rajasthan Students Congress (1945–1947)

Chairman, Municipal Board, Bhilwara (1956–57)

Member of Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee (1967)

Member of All India Congress Committee (1972-till death)

Pramukh, Zila Parishad, Bhilwara (1960–64)

Member, Third Lok Sabha (1964–1967)

Member, Rajasthan State Legislative Assembly (1967–72, 1972–77, 1980–85, 1985–90, 1990–91, 1998–2003, 2003-)

Chairman Public Undertakings Committee of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly (1980–81)

Convenor, Rules Committee of Rajasthan Legislative Assembly (1985–87)

Chairman, Subordinate Legislation Committee of Rajasthan Legislative Assembly (1987–88)

Minister for Education, Power, PWD, Public Relations in the Rajasthan Cabinet (1967–72)

Minister for Food and Civil Supplies, Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Dairy and Planning in the Rajasthan Cabinet (1973–77)

Chief Minister of Rajasthan (1981–85 and 1988–89)

Member, Tenth Lok Sabha (1991–96)

Chairman, Committee on Privileges, Lok Sabha, (1991–96)

Convenor of Sub-Committee on Energy, Lok Sabha (1994–96)

Member, Executive Committee, Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (1994–96)

Life Chairman, Social Policy Research Institute, Jaipur (1985)

Chairman, Estimates Committee, Rajasthan Legislative Assembly (1998–2003)

Chairman, Administrative Reforms Commission Rajasthan (1999–2003)

Member, Rules Committee of Rajasthan Legislative Assembly (2004)

Incident in Deeg during 1985 Raj. Assembly elections

जीप की टक्कर से मुख्यमंत्री माथुर के हैलीकॉप्टर को फौड डाला

वर्ष 1985 के आठवीं विधानसभा चुनाव के दौरान भरतपुर के राजा मानसिंह डीग विधानसभा से निर्दलीय चुनाव लड़ रहे थे। 20 फरवरी 85 को तत्कालीन मुख्यमंत्री शिवचरण माथुर भरतपुर के राजा राजा मान सिंह के खिलाफ चुनाव लड़ रहे कांग्रेस के प्रत्याशी विजेंद्र सिंह के समर्थन में चुनावी सभा के लिए डीग आए थे। चुनावी भाषण में तत्कालीन मुख्यमंत्री माथुर ने भरतपुर राजघराने पर कटाक्ष और प्रतिकूल टिप्पणी करना प्रारंभ कर दिया था। मुख्यमंत्री माथुर के समर्थकों ने राजा साहब के झंडों व बैनरों को फाड़ दिया। माथुर की सभा के पास ही राजा मान सिंह समर्थकों के साथ जनसंपर्क में व्यस्त थे। तत्कालीन मुख्यमंत्री माथुर द्वारा की गई टिप्पणी व समर्थकों के बेहूदा कार्यों के बारे में लोगों ने तत्काल ही राजा मान सिंह को अवगत करा दिया। राजा मान सिंह यह सुनकर आपा खो बैठे। उन्हें इतना ज्यादा गुस्सा आया कि वह स्वयं अपने जौंगा (जीप) के साथ तेजी से सभास्थल पहुंचे और मंच को धराशाई कर दिया। तौरण द्वार तोड़ दिया तथा अपनी जीप को मुख्यमंत्री माथुर के हैलीकॉप्टर से टकरा दिया। माथुर सभा किए बिना ही वापस लौट गए। राजा मान सिंह के ख़िलाफ़ पुलिस ने केस दर्ज कर लिया।

राजा मान सिंह की हत्या - अगले दिन 21 फरवरी 1985 को जब राजा मान सिंह डीग अनाज मंडी में बैठे थे तब मुख्यमंत्री माथुर के निर्देश पर पुलिस अधीक्षक कानसिंह भाटी ने उन्हें घेर कर उन पर फायरिंग किया। मान सिंह के साथ ही सुमेर सिंह और हरी सिंह को गोली लगी। भरतपुर अस्पताल में तीनों को मृत घोषित कर दिया गया।

मुख्य मंत्री बदले - 22 फरवरी 1985 को दिल्ली से माखन लाल फोतेदार का माथुर को फोन आया कि आलाकमान का निर्देश है आप मुख्य मंत्री के पद से इस्तीफ़ा दे दीजिये. इस तरह मथुए से त्यागपत्र लेकर हीरालाल देवपुरा को मुख्य मंत्री बनाया गया।

Article in India Today

Slaying of Rajasthan MLA Raja Man Singh comes as a severe jolt to Congress(I)

The slaying of Rajasthan MLA Raja Man Singh in a police 'encounter' last fortnight has come as a severe jolt to the Congress(I)'s efforts to woo the state's powerful Jat electorate. The bizarre episode led to the resignation of chief minister Shiv Charan Mathur.

Sunil Sethi December 2, 2013 ISSUE DATE: March 15, 1985UPDATED: March 4, 2014 17:28 IST

On the face of it, it sounded like a cops-and-cowboy melodrama out of a curry Western: people's hero is humiliated, wreaks revenge to restore honour, then falls in full public view to a hail of bullets on the main street of his one-horse town. But in reality, there was something peculiarly and inimitably Indian about the bizarre incident in Deeg last week, in which Raja Man Singh, local MLA and scion of the ruling house of Bharatpur, first smashed the chief minister's helicopter in a fit of rage and then came to a sticky end at the hands of the police.

If Man Singh was promptly catapulted to martyrdom by his Jat followers, the police action aroused violent public reaction, and the Government was left in a deeply compromising situation politically at the crucial time of the assembly elections.

The scenes of public protest that followed Man Singh's killing forced the Rajasthan chief minister Shiv Charan Mathur to resign and, by week's end, the police officer who ordered the firing, had been suspended and a judicial inquiry had been ordered into the matter.

Meanwhile, the immediate repercussion was a daunting prospect for the ruling party. The princely family of Bharatpur being the only Jat ruling house in the country, the reaction to the ex-Raja's bloody death could reverse an already reluctant Jat vote that the Congress(I) has fervently nurtured in as many as six Jat-dominated assembly constituencies in and around Bharatpur. Curiously enough, the whole episode occurred in the heat of the election campaign. And while it may be easy to cast the 64-year-old Independent political leader in the role of the half-demented feudal going on a rampage, and equally expedient to imagine that the policemen, led by Deputy Superintendent Kahn Singh Bhati, fired in the interest of public safety, both possibilities seemed improbable at closer investigation. The massive turnout at Singh's funeral in Bharatpur signified that he was, in fact, a much-loved and popular figure.

His eccentricities notwithstanding, the fact that he had retained his assembly seat uninterrupted since 1952 is clear indication of the confidence he inspired in his mandate. And the growing number of eyewitness reports to the shootout, which happened after all in the crowded main street of Deeg in broad daylight, suggest that the police firing was both hasty and unjustified.

There is no proof to suggest that Man Singh was armed (his revolver was later found packed away in a trunk at his camp) and though a single katta (country-made pistol) was recovered from the party of about 16 men travelling in his vehicle, it cannot be assumed with certainty that it was used.

What is certain is that the police party led by Bhati fired several rounds, first to puncture the tyres of the vehicle, and then shot at him in the arm and back, killing him on the spot, and two of his supporters who died on the way to hospital. Vijay Singh, Man Singh's son-in-law who was sitting beside him, ducked when he heard the bullets whizzing past and was later dragged out by the police and hit on the head with rifle butts.

"It was definitely a planned murder," says Singh, who is married to Man Singh's third daughter Deepa. "It was the police jeep that rammed into Raja Sahib's vehicle, and not the other way round. Ask anyone on the street as they all saw it."

In fact, Singh claims that his father-in-law was going to give himself up for arrest when he heard that he was charged under Section 307 of the IPC with an attempt to murder, after he had rammed his World War II weapon carrier truck repeatedly into the chief minister's helicopter parked at Deeg, thus imperilling the pilot's life who leapt out to safety in the nick of time. Last week, the three-seater Turbo Bell helicopter owned by Maneckji Aviation Pvt Ltd of Bombay, was lying abandoned in the school compound where it had first landed on the fateful afternoon of February 20.

Its fibre-glass bubble was broken and its engine badly damaged. Evidently the incensed Man Singh had rammed his one-tonne vehicle into the helicopter not once but several times, as sweet revenge for Congress(I) workers tearing down his personal yellow-and-blue flag with the figure of Hanuman emblazoned in the centre and also destroying his campaign posters.

"A nobleman will tolerate any humiliation, but not that of his personal standard being insulted," explained Man Singh's distraught wife later at his Moti Jheel Palace in Bharatpur where he was cremated amid a vast crowd of supporters who spontaneously turned up to shout slogans like Giriraj Maharaj ki jai and Raja Man Singh amar rahe.

Other family members, a wide cross-section of Rajput nobility from distant parts of the country who had turned up in mourning, echoed Man Singh's white-haired widow's sentiments of the unholy desecration of the royal standard which her husband had also adopted as his political symbol. In the streets of Deeg, any feeling of half-hearted regret at Man Singh's action was eclipsed by outrage at the manner of his death. Balkishan, a pavement boot-polisher whose stall lies exactly opposite the scene of the police confrontation, claimed in a voice heavy with emotion that Man Singh was shot at pointblank range without provocation. "He was butchered in cold blood and the whole bazar saw it, "he said.

BJP leader Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, former chief minister of Rajasthan, who was at the funeral, was yet more explicit about the cause of the slaying. "The chief minister made a very provocative speech saying that Man Singh would be taught a lesson.

Next day he was taught that lesson by gunshots. If, in fact, the Raja had caused a provocation by damaging the chief minister's helicopter they should have arrested him, not murdered him," he said vehemently.

An indication of the emotions aroused in the Jat community was available when the congregated mob following the funeral cortege around Bharatpur city set alight four police jeeps.

Two days later three people were killed when the police opened fire to disperse angry crowds that gathered outside a guest-house in Deeg where a new DSP was staying. Much of the mob fury was focussed against the ruling party, in particular the Congress(I) MP Natwar Singh, now minister of state for steel, who was advised against attending the funeral.

While the Deeg election has been countermanded (curfew was clamped in the town after the police firing) the killing has at once provided an opportunity for Bharatpur's erstwhile ruling family to temporarily paper over their political differences as well as given opposition parties in the Jat belt of Rajasthan-Uttar Pradesh-Haryana an unexpected fillip.

At least four of Bharatpur district's nine assembly constituencies are Jat-dominated but the ripples could rock the ruling party's chances further afield. When the Deeg by-election is called, it is likely (hat Deepa will contest. "My father used to take me everywhere on his political campaigns," she told India Today last week, "and he often suggested to me that I should take a more active interest in politics."

Other family members are also trying to cash in on the widespread sympathy the tragic death has effected. Man Singh's younger brother's son, Arun Singh, was claiming that if the Government did not arrest Bhati forthwith, he would immolate himself in the main public square of Bharatpur.

And his cousin, Vishwendra Singh, son of Man Singh's older brother Maharaja Brijendra Singh of Bharatpur, was suddenly extolling his deceased uncle's virtues when it is a well-known fact that there was no love lost between the brothers. "Because he didn't have a son, he treated me like one," he said. In last year's parliamentary election, while Brijendra Singh had backed the Congress(I) candidate Natwar Singh (also distantly related to the ruling family), Man Singh, ever the contentious younger brother, obstinately refused to do so, and in fact filed his own nomination papers. It was with difficulty that he was persuaded to withdraw his candidature but even so, in the Deeg assembly segment, Natwar Singh lost with a margin of 6,000 votes.

As tangled as the saga of the Bharatpur ruling family's politics are the twists in the personality of a man who straddled them firmly for a span of 33 years. From all accounts Man Singh was a forceful, capable and effective leader, scrupulous in his dealings and amazingly intuitive in capturing the pulse of the people in every election.

Although he changed his constituency on more than one occasion, he eschewed political alignments throughout his public career except once when he fought the election on a Swatantra Party ticket because it represented the interest of the princely families.

And despite his idiosyncracies such as sudden fits of uncontrollable rage or an unabashed propensity to liquor, he was not the cantankerous, high-handed loon that the helicopter incident makes him out to be. Nephew Vishwendra Singh is probably right in describing him as a "strong-minded figure, aware of his heritage and roots and a totally public man".

In short, he possessed unquestionable qualities of leadership - a fact emphasised by the unanimity of Jat anger at his killing and the tension it has created in the area.

The killing apart, the anger is fuelled by the ham-handed way the whole episode was handled by the state authorities. A full day elapsed before any moves were initiated to arrest Man Singh, and it is clear that the police party were given no instructions on how to handle him.

Nor was the arresting officer chosen with care: Bhati has been involved in controversial incidents before where lives have been lost, and caution alone demanded that a more senior officer be deputed for such a delicate task.

How, if at all, the ruling party will manage to assuage the hurt sentiments of a community will depend as much on Congress(I) strategy and leadership in the few days left before the poll. Accepting the chief minister's resignation is a step in the right direction.

So is ordering the suspension of DSP Bhati and summoning all the policemen involved for further investigation. But it will take considerably more to offer a proper requiem to a man whose hold upon his mandate was unshakeable. Eccentric prince he may have been, but his uncanny awareness of the working of grassroot politics was immeasurably superior to that of local Congress(I) leaders.

External Links

• Bio profile of Shiv Charan Mathur at the website of Lok Sabha
• Obituary - An article in The Times of India dated 27 June 2009

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