By this time, the charisma of Nehru family started weaning,Media was toplay a greater role in gradual weaning of Nehrus.  Bofors happened and Rajiv was alleged to have taken personal bribes and his own deputy VP Singh was the new Mr. Clean for the media. Opposition rallied behind him to unseat Rajiv both right wing and left wing parties supported VP Singh government for 11 odd months from outside until the Raja of Munda chose to open a pandora's box in the name of Mandal commission. BJP  under Advani chose to undertake a Rath Yathri from Somnath to Ayodhya to build a Ram temple where a Mosque had been built by Babar demolishing a Ram temple. BJP came a force to reckon with following this yatra getting almost 90 seats compared to two in 1984.  But even then the dreams of getting in to power remained a pipe dream.

In 1991, Rajiv fell to LTTE suicide bomber in Tamil nadu. Rajiv was expected to come back topower. But still Congress managed to capture power as the largest party under the leadership of Narasimha Rao. For the first time, the PM was from outside Gandhi NEhru family.He was watched with intense interest. The time was such that Indian economy was in doldrums and were to default on loan repayments to World bank. Rao took a strategic shift from Nehruvian policies when he went for large scale liberalisation. He chose Dr.Manmohan Singh as his FinanceMinister much to the discomfiture of his fellow cabinet members. This ws the period when Congress party was moving away from Neruvian Ideals on socialism and embraced market based economy. Reforms then were mandated by World bank and not anyones' brilliant idea. But theoriginal father of Indian Reforms is indeed a die hard congress man Sri PV Narasimha Rao. He had his own plans for the party which we will discuss in the next blog