His grand father Late Shri Ram Roop Singh was a freedom fighter (organizer) and a man of honor. His father Late Shri Jagdish Singh was a Police Officer and rose to the post of Deputy S.P. in Uttar Pradesh Police. He was known for his honesty and sincere work and consequently had to face very frequent transfers as he never suited his political masters.
Shailendra Singh received his primary education at Village Fesuda, and, notwithstanding the frequent disruption in studies due to his Father's transfers, went on to complete his M.A. in Philosophy from Allahabad University in 1989, secured Research Fellowship from U.G.C. and was engaged in research for Ph.D. in Philosophy when he got selected in Uttar Pradesh Police Service in 1991.
He joined the Provincial Police Service in 1994 in the capacity of Deputy Superintendent of Police and served at Jaunpur, Varanasi, Barabanki and Lucknow during the 10 years of his total service period. He performed his duties with strict uprightness, courage and with unerring standards of truth and justice, in the process frequently facing severe political pressures to safeguard the culprits, which he always resisted vehemently.
During his posting as in-charge of STF unit of Varanasi in January, 2004, Shailendra Singh intercepted telephonic deal between the then MLA from Mau and an absconder of the army, regarding sale of a Light Machine Gun stolen from the Army. After collecting sufficient proof, he arrested the absconder and recovered the LMG on 25 January 2004. He requested permission from the Government to book the MLA under POTA (Prevention Of Terrorist Activities Act). Upon this, almost whole of the Ruling Party Leadership and the Government machinery came out openly to protect the culprit MLA. Shailendra Singh was called to Lucknow on the pretext of evaluation meeting and the Varanasi office of STF unit was shut down. Protesting against the political intervention to save a criminal, Shailendra Singh resigned from the service and faxed his resignation letter to the Hon. Governor on 11 February, 2004, holding that law should apply equally to everybody, as well to a Politician as to a common man. This created a huge uproar in the Assembly and the Chief Minister had to himself say that he doesn't care for the bureaucrats and that no Politician could be booked under POTA.
After resignation, Shailendra Singh decided to contest the forthcoming Parliamentary Elections as an independent candidate. The aim was to present the public with a new direction of electoral politics which would be against the clout of money-power and muscle-power in politics and against criminalisation of politics. It was a huge call considering the facts that there was hardly one and a half month left for the elections, there was neither money nor any organizational strength and he did not have even a single vehicle nor a house to live in. He was offered party ticket of BJP from Chandauli, which he had out rightly refused. Still he decided to contest the election on following pretexts:
There is no paucity of good people who still go out to vote at the call of their heart.
If good people keep running away from Politics, the criminal elements are going to get a walkover.
The criminal elements, wielding money-power and muscle-power have deliberately made the elections costly enough to alienate the common man from fighting elections. Since every party is fielding same type of candidate, the common man has also lost interest in voting. Thus under a well thought strategy, common man is being alienated from both processes of democracy - contesting elections and voting. So, what we are having today may better be called a pseudo-democracy. This process has to be reversed.
Elections can be fought even without money, by small contributions from the voters themselves, if the candidate is good enough. And this needs to be shown. If the public chooses a candidate contesting without money, he will be the true representative of the public, working for the public and not for the financers of his election expenses.
If the public elects good people contesting without money or muscle-power, the political parties will also, in time, understand what the public actually wants. Then they will also start giving tickets to good workers of the party, who today, in spite of all the efforts being put in, cannot even dream of getting party ticket without having money or muscle power. This trend may usher in a new direction in Indian politics, and then only we can have Democracy in true sense of the term.
Thus, he went to file his nomination papers, standing on a cycle-rickshaw, without a single vehicle, but surrounded by thousands of supporters. The election campaign was unprecedented. The people of Varanasi had never witnessed such a thing. Thousands of rupees got collected at every election meeting from the 1 rupee - 2 rupee contributions from the general public. Huge gatherings listened him speaking at public meetings with pin-drop silence. There was a large vehicle procession comprising about 50 four-wheelers and about 400 two wheelers, all of it brought in by self motivated people using there own petrol.
Though he lost the election, may be due to lack of expertise or lack of time or lack of poll management, he succeeded in showing a new way of contesting elections to the people of Varanasi. He secured record number of votes ever polled by an independent candidate in Varanasi.
After elections, he constituted the Vikalp Manch, a NGO to work for improvements in the existing system in political, social, economic and cultural fields which also acts as a common platform for all organizations working with similar objectives.
In January, 2005, he joined Indian National Congress and now heads the Right to Information Task Force of Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee.

RTI- task Force Chief Shailendra Singh!