Last rites of Arjun Singh performed

The mortal remains of veteran Congress leader and former Union minister Arjun Singh were on Sunday consigned to flames with full state honours near Rao Sagar pond in his hometown Churhat in Madhya Pradesh.

Singh passed away in New Delhi on Friday evening at the age of 81.

His elder son, Abhimanyu Singh, lit the funeral pyre this afternoon in the presence of the late leader's followers, partymen and relatives.

Singh's mortal remains were brought by an Air Force helicopter from New Delhi last evening.

A flower-bedecked truck carried the late leader's body in a procession for the cremation from his ancestral village, Shivrajpur Sada, around noon today as thousands of people queued up along the road.

Around one lakh people were estimated to have turned up for the funeral.

Union ministers Pranab Mukherjee, Kamal Nath, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Kantilal Bhuria and Arun Yadav; Madhya Pradesh governor Rameshwar Thakur, State chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh, AICC general  secretaries Digvijay Singh and Mohsina Kidwai and MP Congress Committee president Suresh Pachouri were among those present to pay their last respects to Singh.