A teacher, librarian, and above all a popular politician, is how colleagues of Sahib Singh Verma remember him today.
Born on March 15, 1943, in Delhi's Mundka village, the former teacher rose from the ranks of a councillor in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi in 1977 to that of a Union minister in 2002.
Verma, who began his political career as a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharak, soon made his way up Bharatiya Janata Party's ranks and was made the Delhi education and development minister in 1993 after he was elected on a BJP ticket.
The Jat leader with a doctorate in library sciences hit headlines owing to the growing rivalry with his party colleague Madan Lal Khurana. In 1996, he took over from his adversary as the chief minister of Delhi when the latter was embroiled in a corruption case.
However, his tenure was marked by skyrocketing onion prices and water and power crises. He was replaced by Sushma Swaraj in October 1998. Verma was then included in the Union Cabinet in 2002.
As Union labour minister, Verma was known by bureaucrats as the 'bull in a China shop' as he used to openly reprimand them for expressing reservations about his decision to stick to the 9.5 per cent interest rate for employees provident fund contributions.
Tragedy struck the Vermas' on June 30, 2007. Verma was killed when the car in which he was travelling in collided with a mini-truck near Khandura 'mode' in Alwar district of Rajasthan, nearly 165 km from New Delhi. He is survived by his wife, two sons and three daughters.
Text: Vipin Vijayan
Photograph: Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images
Also read: When Sahib Singh Verma chatted with Rediff readers
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