the state. He resigned his Lok Sabha seat and won a bypoll to the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly from Kharsia in 1988. However, he resigned as Chief Minister in 1989 owing to the Churhat lottery scam, and was succeeded by Motilal Vora. He won in 1990 from Churhat. In 1991, he won from Satna. He resigned his assembly seat and harboured ambitions of becoming Prime Minister after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. However, P. V. Narasimha Rao became Prime Minister and Singh was appointed the Minister of Human Resource Development. He publicly expressed discontent with the Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao after the Babri Masjid demolition. He resigned as Minister of Human Resource Development in 1994. In 1996, he rebelled against the INC leadership and formed the All India Indira Congress (Tiwari) along with Narayan Dutt Tiwari. However, he lost in 1996 from Satna. Later, he returned to INC after the emergence of Sonia Gandhi. He lost in 1998 from Narmadapuram. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2000 from Madhya Pradesh, and was re-elected in 2006. He was awarded the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award in 2000. He served as Minister of Human Resource Development from 2004 to 2009 in the Manmohan Singh cabinet. Controversies Bhopal Incident Arjun Singh was the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh when the deadly gas leak from the Union Carbide factory occurred. It is widely alleged that on the fateful night between 2 and 3 December 1984, when the gas leak occurred, Arjun Singh fled to his Kerwa Dam Palace (outside Bhopal) to save himself from deadly effects of leaked gas and was not available to manage the crisis or lead the administration. Subsequently, the Arjun Singh government's mishandling was criticised by the court in the verdict on the Bhopal disaster as pronounced by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bhopal on 7 June 2010. The media raised serious questions about his role in the release of Warren Anderson. In particular, the pilot of the aircraft in which Warren Anderson flew out of India after the gas leak, has recorded that the final sanction to permit the flight came from Arjun Singh's office. Churhat Lottery case and Kerwa Dam palace While Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Singh was involved in the scandal known as the Churhat Lottery case. The Churhat Children Welfare Society was floated in 1982 by relatives of Singh, and permitted to raise funds via