People refer to Manmohan Singh as the ‘Accidental Prime Minister’ a movie by the name too has been made but it is P V Narasimha Rao who is the first and original accidental prime minister. The year was 1991. It was an election year and the Congress’s prime ministerial candidate Rajiv Gandhi was campaigning with all his might, to the extent that he even ignored warnings that his life was in danger. As fate would have it, he was killed by a suicide bomber.

P V Narasimha Rao had already packed his bags and was ready to return to Hyderabad for a retired life and told all that he would immerse himself in books. But fate had other things in store for the battle scarred veteran, who was often referred as a ‘modern day Chanakya’. With the untimely death of Rajiv Gandhi, P V Narasimha Rao he was catapulted to the highest office.