Those who have known Arjun Singh from close quarters have not been surprised at the latest denouement. Though fond of quoting from the Mahabharata's Arjun to declare that he would neither show cowardice nor run away from the battlefield (na dainyam, na cha palayanam), Arjun Singh of the Congress is wont to run away at the first sign of crisis. One day he says that the decision-taking process in the higher echelons in the Congress is in disarray, and then he finds that the loyalty (in the Congress) is being evaluated from a very limited yardstick. As he is attacked for his utterances by all, including his most ardent supporters like Ajit Jogi and Subhash Yadav, he makes a hasty retreat and pledges his "unflinching loyalty" to the Gandhi family.

          In December 1991, (he was then Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee president as well as HRD minister at the Centre), Arjun Singh had announced his decision to launch from the following month an agitation in the State to oust the BJP government of Sunderlal Patwa. Singh had always been close to Patwa and the decision to launch the agitation was in all probability to silence his critics and also to prove that he would not tolerate what he had described as the most corrupt and despotic regime even if it happened to be headed by his close friend. The Congress leader had stated that he did not bother about the consequences "once I have taken the decision".

          The programme was to hold a demonstration at Kukadeshwar, the native village of Patwa, by defying prohibitory orders, if imposed. Kukadeshwar was selected in view of the desecration of an old mosque allegedly by Patwa's goons there.

          A sort of hysteria against the BJP government was built up by Arjun Singh and his party. The Youth Congress activists were asked to carry lathis to meet the police lathis at Kukadeshwar. The administration prepared itself to handle the situation firmly. The forces, including the mounted police, were summoned from the neighbouring districts and buses were requisitioned to transport the agitators to jails. Patwa deputed his trusted cabinet colleagues to take charge of the situation there.

          As the crescendo nearly reached a climax, Arjun Singh beat a retreat and abandoned the programme of demonstration in favour of an innocuous public meeting, at a place sufficiently away from Kukadeshwar. The State government responded by dismantling its own preparations. Singh, in his speech, criticised the Patwa government rhetorically but made no demand for its ouster, nor did he spell out the objective of the party's agitation which he said would continue at different levels till March. To give a farcical touch to the entire show, Arjun Singh later asked then State home minister Kailash Chawla: "I hope there was nothing improper in my speech".   

    
          Arjun Singh feels concern at the lack of democracy in the party only when he finds the things not going according to his wishes. Otherwise, he has always used the democratic process to achieve his own undemocratic goals. After the 1980 Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, he was one of the three candidates for the leadership of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP). A majority of the party MLAs favoured Shivbhan Singh Solanki, a tribal MLA from Jhabua, but Arjun Singh became the chief minister by taking the help of Sanjay Gandhi who was then calling the shots in the Congress.

          The construction of Bharat Bhavan, the premier multi-arts complex, was completed in Arjun Singh's time and he had constituted the first trustee committee.

           Then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had written in 1981-82 to the chief ministers of the tribal-dominated States to ensure proprietary rights to the tribals over the minor forest produce. Arjun Singh remembered that letter only in 1988 not so much to help the tribals but to teach a lesson to BJP leader Lakhiram Agrawal who was a major tendu patta trader of the State. Arjun Singh, as chief minister, had contested in 1988 from Kharsia constituency and Lakhiram Agrawal, as the election manager of Dilip Singh Judeo, had created hell for Arjun Singh. He took over the tendu patta trade from the hands of Agrawal and some other private operators. The entire government machinery was employed in the task of tendu patta collection and a huge profit in the trade was shown (all the operational costs having been defrayed by the departments employed). A handsome bonus was disbursed to the tendu patta pluckers, mostly, but not all, tribals. Lakhiram Agrawal was put out of business. Arjun Singh's concern for tribals ended there.
Though a well-read person with a scholarly bent of mind, Arjun Singh occasionally suffers from fits of megalomania. Then he loses perspective and starts seeing him at the centre of the happenings. When he resigned from the Union cabinet and walked out of the Congress in December 1994, he did not have an iota of doubt in his mind that this would lead to exodus from the Congress and, at any rate, the government of Digvijay Singh in Madhya Pradesh would fall in no time. (He had by then developed a special aversion for Digvijay Singh whose elevation to the chief minister's chair he had facilitated through manoeuvrings a year earlier). But nothing of the sort happened.

        His personal exhortations to his followers in the Madhya Pradesh Congress to attend the May 19 (1995) conference in Delhi (where the Congress Tiwari was formed) went unheeded. A month later the Tiwari Congress held its first convention at Jabalpur. Both Arjun Singh and his son Ajay Singh (Rahul Bhaiya) spent considerable time in Bhopal before the convention and literally begged the Congress MLAs and ministers to attend the convention. Arjun Singh had particularly pleaded with them not to stab him in the back. But he could get no more than half a dozen MLAs to attend the Jabalpur convention.

        At the convention the target of his vitriolic attack was not so much Narasimha Rao as Digvijay Singh. He declared that a vigorous "jail bharo" agitation would be launched within two months to bring down the corrupt, inefficient and anti-people government of Digvijay Singh. All Digvijay Singh did was to make inquiries at the police headquarters about a murder case file in which a judicial inquiry had linked Arjun Singh's name. Arjun Singh never again mentioned the agitation or his intention to pull down the Digvijay Singh government.

        Arjun Singh is almost at the fag end of his political career. His son Ajay Singh (Rahul Bhaiya) was only recently made chairman of the Campaign Committee of the faction-ridden Madhya Pradesh Congress. Besides, Arjun Singh is said to be interested in the Congress ticket for his daughter Veena Singh from Sidhi during the next Lok Sabha elections. He may only be leaving a bad legacy for his son and daughter by annoying the powers that be in the party.