Rajiv Gandhi was born in one of the most prominent political families of India. He became the third generation in his family to become the Prime Minister of India – after his maternal grandfather, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and mother Smt. Indira Gandhi. He became the youngest Prime Minister of India at the age of 40. The developmental projects launched by him included the overhaul of national education policy and a major expansion of the telecom sector. His aggressive efforts to curb the LTTE in Sri Lanka led to his untimely assassination by the group in Sriperambudur in 1991. He was awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian recognition, posthumously in 1991.
His mother, Indira Gandhi was the first and the only woman Prime Minister of India. Feroze Gandhi, a key member of the Indian National Congress and the editor of The National Herald newspaper, was his father.
Prime Minister of India
Following the assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, by her bodyguards at her New Delhi residence, Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as the Prime Minister. The Congress Party, riding high on the tragedy, witnessed a landslide victory in the parliamentary following elections.
Economic Policies
The economic policies adopted by Rajiv Gandhi were different from his predecessors like Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. He introduced policies that bordered on light-footed reforms of the existing economic agenda of the country which was based on protectionism following a Soviet model. These reforms paved way for the more extensive linearization efforts of the economy in 1991. Another major decision during his tenure as Prime Minister was the decision to do away with the license and quota Raj. He reduced the tax on the technological industry, reformed import policies related to telecommunication, defence, and commercial airline. He put emphasis on the introduction of contemporary technological advances in various sectors, thus modernizing industries to attract higher foreign investment in the economy.
Assassination
1987 July 29, Under the pressure of India, Srilankan Government agreed for the peace and signed for the agreement and accepted some of the demands of Tamilians but the actual things Indian Government wants to do is Stopping LTEE(Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) for the war and should provide peace in Sri Lanka. In order to do this they met tigers and spoke for the peace along with sending peacekeeping forces to Srilanka, but majority of Srilankan people rejected the peace, because they believed that RAW ( Research and Analysis Wing) is supplying weapons to Tamilians(tigers) and thought that they would occupy their place, because of this they took revenge when Rajiv Gandhi came to Colombo for the peace agreement by hitting him, which was done by one of the Srilankan navy sailor named Vijitha Rohana. Indian government understood that the people had an immense opposition to him.
Peacekeeping force who went to Srilanka for peace, made Tamil rebellions hand over their weapons and bow to them, except LTTE every group came under the control of Indian army and Internationally Indian position raised. LTTE was fighting with Indian army for years, and Srilankan government forced Rajiv to withdraw but he said that he will never let Indian army leave Srilanka until the inner war is stopped.
1989, Rajiv Gandhi government lost the power with this he became an opposition member and the then Prime Minister, V. P. Singh called the force back, but things changed for the people over there, they were mad at Rajiv and people targeted him and Rajiv proclaimed that he would get the military again to Srilanka if he would become Prime Minister and it made Srilankan’s fear a lot, because of this they planned for the death of Rajiv Gandhi.
1990 November V. P. Singh government collapsed, because of this they called for the election. Rajiv was going up with his busy schedule in the election and the campaign was already completed in Tamilnadu. But on May 17 Tamil daily newspaper in Dinathanthi , it stated that Rajiv will be coming for the election to Perumbudur and the crazy thing was AICC(All India Congress Committee ) people were never decided the second meeting at Tamilnadu, but the next day after the news Rajiv’s tour was fixed, but how did Dinathanthi knew that he was coming before everyone ? It was Maragatham(Congress Leader) who forced Rajiv to come to the place for the election. Everyone opposed her idea even Jayalalitha because he was the first one who is on the hit list of LTTE.
It was 1991, may 21, Tour was started and police can’t give good security because of Maragatham. She took permission from the police for the meeting at SRI Perumbudur school ground, but suddenly it changed to Temple Ground and she never took the permission for the place-shifting.
The huge mistake made by Maragatham which lead for his death and gave a chance to kill him everyone doubted her during investigation SIT(Special Investigation Team) left many pieces of evidence on his death but eventually, they solved the case that who killed him.
It was Thenmozhi Rajaratnam, also known as Dhanu who killed Rajiv Gandhi. Shiv Rasan who helped Dhanu killed Rajiv using RDX Bomb. A pregnant Nalini was arrested on June 14, 1991, for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. Nalini who was a close friend of an LTTE operative known as V Sriharan alias Murugan, another convict in the case who had been sentenced to death, later gave birth to a girl, Harithra Murugan in prison.
And videotape during Rajiv assassination was missing and no one knows that where it is.
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