In December 1987 some people in the Congress suggested to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi that rather than wait till December 1989 for his full term to run out, he should hold the next general election in 1988 itself. There were strong reasons for this. Things were going very badly indeed for Rajiv.
In March that year, President Zail Singh had let it be known that he could remove him as PM. In mid-April the Bofors kickback revelation had come. In June the Congress had lost Haryana. Then the monsoon had failed and the resulting inflation had added to the sense
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