....." I will give you four big reasons. I will also narrate at the end how Sonia Gandhi’s Congress not only sidelined, but also humiliated this great scholarly Prime Minister of India from the same Congress party.
1. He was not a Nehru-Gandhi dynasty sycophant: It was the extraordinary guts of PV Narasimha Rao, that made him ask openly about dynasty worship culture of Congress:
“Why should the Congress party be hitched to the Nehru-Gandhi family like train compartments to the engine?”
This is how how the late P V Narasimha Rao reacted to the suggestion that Sonia Gandhi be made the Congress chief after the assassination of her husband Rajiv Gandhi in May, 1991. Needless to say, this made him a villain for those in Congress whose sole survival was revolving around the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. It’s considered blasphemy in Congress party to criticize the *holy* dynasty.
2. Ayodhya: Even though it was Rajiv Gandhi who opened the locks of Ram Janmabhumi complex in Ayodhya on 1st February 1986, it was during Narasimha Rao’s time that the dilapidated structure came tumbling down. Considering the extreme care Congress takes towards its secular image (which others pooh pooh as pseudo secular), they had to develop a new villain to blame for Babri Masjid issue in 1992. Of course they could not blame Rajiv Gandhi who opened the locks and started this whole episode, so they painted PVN Rao as the enemy of secularism. PVN being a staunch and proud Hindu made it easier to target him.
3. Reversing the License Raj of Nehru and Indira: What we call as Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh’s “liberalization” was nothing but a systematic reversal of license Raj setup by Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. I strongly suggest everyone to read Gurcharan Das’ book “ India Unbound”.
That book explains in splendid detail, how Jawaharlal Nehru was the architect of the draconian License Raj and how his daughter Indira Gandhi made it almost a sin to make profit during 1970s. If you made 100 Rupees profit in 1970s, you almost ended up paying the entire amount as tax, and in some cases even shell out your own money over it! That’s when black money problem seriously started in India as everyone started hoarding profit elsewhere. So obviously those who benefited from the black economy, hated Narasimha Rao for his fight against that license raj model - which had created corruption top to bottom in India. "