Arjun Singh

March 28: A feud has broken out among Arjun Singh’s children over the rights to the late leader’s yet-to-be published autobiography, which is expected to be politically explosive.

Daughter Veena, who has not spoken to her two brothers for years, insists she has equal claim over the book as Abhimanyu and Ajay. The key issue, family sources said, is that a crucial chapter dealing with UPA II needs to be “touched up”. The siblings are fighting over who should do it.

The affections of Arjun’s wife Saroj are evenly divided among her children. Hay House India, the publisher of A Grain of Sand in the Ocean of Time, is tight-lipped about who the legal heir is.

The family feud has a political angle too. Ajay and Veena are rivals in the Congress, sections of which are worried about what Arjun might have to say on subjects such as Babri, Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson’s escape and the Rajiv Gandhi assassination probe.

Veena has been a controversial figure. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, she had contested as a rebel from family turf Sidhi while Ajay campaigned hard for the official Congress nominee. Both candidates lost, and Arjun was blamed for his failure to prevent Veena from contesting. It was one of the reasons Arjun was kept out of the UPA II government.

Arjun’s associate of over four decades, Yunus, is firmly with Ajay. “Decency and loyalty prevent me from saying much, but I know who had turned up to see him (Arjun) when he was in hospital for 35 days,” Yunus said. Sources said few relatives or party colleagues came to see the ailing Arjun, who died on March 4.

Veena claims she had “nursed him (Arjun) 24x7 through his illness” but Yunus and many other Arjun loyalists dispute this. The daughter was at the forefront of an all-faith meeting last Saturday, where she sat next to Sonia, but Arjun loyalist Mahendra Singh Chauhan says it was Ajay who organised the event.

Ajay, a four-time lawmaker from Churhat, is tipped to become the leader of the Opposition in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly. But a Congress lobby opposed to him and Digvijay Singh wants to accommodate Veena.

Veena is often seen in the company of BJP leaders Jaswant Singh, Vasundhara Raje and Yashodhara Raje. The Scindias are related to her as Veena’s son Aishwarya is married to Usha Raje’s daughter Devyani, a Nepalese princess. Some in the Congress feel that if Veena is not co-opted, she may join the BJP.