Tributes weren’t in short supply either. "As a Union HRD minister, he’s been a pathfinder and a pace setter...committed to education as a purposeful instrument of social and economic change," the PM said. He went on to add that "everyday my admiration for him increases". The 75-year-old Arjun Singh has been at the forefront in monitoring the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case as well as the Ayodhya demolition. And as hrd minister, he’s reversed many appointments and decisions of the earlier NDA government. Praise for Arjun Singh, instrumental when he was MP chief minister for the mass surrender of dacoits, came from all quarters including Sonia Gandhi. All this illustrating the importance he commands in the UPA even as detractors question the faith reposed in him by Sonia Gandhi.
