Bihar’s backward and extremely backward classes welfare minister and BJP leader Vinod Kumar Singh, who was undergoing treatment following brain haemorrhage for over a month at Medanta Hospital in Delhi, died on Monday. He was 54. The BJP has fielded his wife Nisha Singh on Pranpur seat in the forthcoming Bihar elections.
Singh’s condition began deteriorating two days ago. Earlier, both Singh and his wife had tested positive for coronavirus (Covid-19) in June and he was discharged from hospital after recovery.
However, about one-and-a-half month ago, he was rushed to Medanta by air ambulance following a brain haemorrhage.
Singh started his political career in 1995 when he was just 29 and he became MLA from Pranpur assembly seat in 2000 by defeating RJD’s veteran leader Mahendra Narayan Yadav.
In 2005, he lost the seat but went on to win in both 2010 and 2015. “In the 2015 assembly polls, he proved his popularity as he succeeded in defeating the RJD-JD(U) combine,” local BJP leader Appu Kumar said, adding, “He was quite popular in the area.”
It was his popularity that landed him a Cabinet berth. However, he refused to contest the 2020 assembly polls due to illness and the party awarded the ticket to his wife Nisha Singh from Pranpur seat.
The leader was a post graduate in Physics and a law graduate from Bhupendra Narayan Mandal University, Madhepura. He is survived by his wife and two daughters.
Chief minister Nitish Kumar, deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, Katihar MP Dulal Chandra Goswami, ex-BJP MP Nikhil Kumar Chaudhary and others expressed their sorrow over the demise of the young leader.
The chief minister described him as an “able administrator and a popular leader. His death is a great loss in the field of political and social field”. Kumar also announced a state funeral as per the guidelines issued for Covid pandemic.