The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) party with its five members of parliament (MP) has joined the ruled United Progressive Alliance (UPA). RLD supremo Ajit Singh has given a letter requesting to join the UPA to its chairperson Ms. Sonia Gandhi.
Mr. Ajit Singh will be inducted as the new minister of civil aviation on December 18th.
Ajit Singh has a B.Sc. degree from Lucknow University, a B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, and a M.S. from the Illinois Institute of Technology near Chicago, USA. He is known to have interests in agriculture and modern technology, especially the application of the latter in the former.
He has worked in the U.S. computer industry for 17 years, before returning to India in the early 1980s to revive the Lok Dal party founded by his father Charan Singh.
For sure, Mr. Singh has the intellect to grasp the enormity and complexity of the problems drowning the Indian civil aviation industry. His strategic grasp will be matched with the action of Dr. Zaidi, the Secretary in the ministry.
The question is whether Mr. Singh with only five MPs, will have the political clout to force through much needed changes in fuel tax policy and liberalisation in enabling foreign direct investment (FDI) in airlines, through a UPA that is drowning in a lack of action.
Mr. Singh’s official biography micro-site.
Image courtesy Wikipedia.