• PM Narendra Modi pays tribute to former PM Chodhary Charan Singh on his birth anniversary.

• Chaudhary Charan Singh (23 December 1902 – 29 May 1987) served as the 5th Prime Minister of India between 28 July 1979 and 14 January 1980. Historians and people alike frequently refer to him as the `champion of India`s peasants.

• Charan Singh was born on 23 December 1902 in a rural peasant Jat family of village Noorpur, District Hapur (Erstwhile District Meerut), Uttar Pradesh (Erstwhile United Provinces of Agra and Oudh).

• Charan Singh entered politics as part of the Independence Movement motivated by Mohandas Gandhi.

• He was active from 1931 in the Ghaziabad District Arya Samaj as well as the Meerut District Indian National Congress for which he was jailed twice by the British. 

• Charan Singh opposed Jawaharlal Nehru on his Soviet-style economic reforms, and he helped transform the agricultural economy of North India after 1947. Charan Singh was of the opinion that cooperative farms would not succeed in India. 

• He became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1967, and later in 1970.

• He served as Deputy Prime Minister,Home Minister and Finance minister in the Janata government headed by Morarji Desai.