NEW DELHI, Aug. 10 -- CONGRESS leaders like Shashi Tharoor are suggesting an election of a new party president. They have probably forgotten the Tirupati Congress session in April 1992 to elect a new Congress Working Committee. This exercise in democracy astonished arch Brahmin P.V. Narasimha Rao because Arjun Singh, a Rajput, led the pack followed by intermediate casts like Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot. The results were declared null and void. Why this happened is explained at the end of this piece.
This being the 30th anniversary of one of Rajiv Gandhi gaffes, from which the party could never really recover, I have hung the story on that peg.
Two retrogressive steps taken by Rajiv Gandhi to please the "Mullah", naturally alienated the ...