Kalyan Singh was at the nucleus of the Ram Mandir campaign that saw the demolition of the Mughal-era Babri Masjid in 1992. Kalyan Singh was the Uttar Pradesh chief minister back then.

Singh, an OBC leader, was a cadre’s delight, recalled former minister Rajendra Tiwari, who was UP BJP secretary when Kalyan Singh was the state party chief in 1984.

Much before the emergence of Narendra Modi on the national scene, it was Kalyan Singh who was seen in party ranks as the “Hindu-Hriday Samrat”. His rise in the party was meteoric — its peak marked by the demolition of the Babri Masjid under his watch as Chief Minister — and his fall and fadeout almost as rapid.

The senior BJP leader had been undergoing treatment in the intensive care unit of the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) in the Uttar Pradesh capital since July 4. On Friday, his condition deteriorated, following which he was placed on dialysis.

Handpicked by the late Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) leader Bhaurao Deoras to head the UP BJP unit after the sudden demise of the party’s first state chief Madhav Prasad Tripathi, Kalyan soon had a job on his hands – countering the Mandal agitation that the RSS feared would divide Hindus on caste lines.

Taking to Twitter, PM Modi remembered Singh as a ‘statesman, veteran administrator, grassroots level leader and great human’. In a series of tweets, Modi wrote that the former UP CM gave voices to the marginalised and worked for their empowerment.