After four decades of total electoral dominance in Independent India, the reign of Indian National Congress (INC) came to an end with a humiliating defeat in the late 1980s. Despite emerging as the single-largest party in the November 1989 election, which saw no party getting a clear mandate, the Congress, under the leadership of PM Rajiv Gandhi, was the biggest loser as it bagged less than half of the total seats it won in its 1984 landslide victory.  The party lost not only national power but also political dominance, as opposition parties from across the political spectrum joined hands in the throes of the Bofors scandal, ushering in a new era of coalition politics and the ‘third electoral’ system in the country. However, this coalition government, the first since the Janata experiment of 1977, did not last long and fell prey to ‘Mandir and Mandal’, a series of socio-religious events that prompted a political realignment which eventually changed the country’s political landscape forever. Lows after the highs of 1984 V.P. Singh after his Lok Sabha …