Disclaimer: This may be used for a future TL, so I'd like some feedback from Indian experts. IOTL Rajiv lost in '89 for 3 reasons: 1) caving to Muslim fundies on the Shah Bano case, 2) Bofors 3) flip-flopping as soon as criticism was offered of his essentially cosmetic Thatcherite economic reforms instead of going full-throttle on the fundamentals as Singh and Rao did from the 1990s onward. Objective: win a second majority government in 1989, ideally retaining a two-party system capable of forming single-party majority governments rather than the minority coalitions since then.
Here are my ideas...
Shah Bano: uphold the Supreme Court no matter what the Muslim fundies say. The lost Muslim fundie votes will go to the BJP or Janata anyways, and they'll be more than compensated with non-fundie and liberal Muslims along with secularists of all faiths.
Bofors: take the lower bid instead of Bofors. Also, fire VP Singh, clearly a Heseltine-wannabe, and replace Singh with someone else. Put PVN Rao as DPM and Home Minister, or DPM and government leader in the Lok Sabha- Rajiv's Willie Whitelaw, in essence.
Economy: Singh goes from the Reserve Bank to Finance, Rao stiffens Rajiv's backbone and brings him around to conclude that economic reform should be the defining issue of his premiership.
Here are my ideas...
Shah Bano: uphold the Supreme Court no matter what the Muslim fundies say. The lost Muslim fundie votes will go to the BJP or Janata anyways, and they'll be more than compensated with non-fundie and liberal Muslims along with secularists of all faiths.
Bofors: take the lower bid instead of Bofors. Also, fire VP Singh, clearly a Heseltine-wannabe, and replace Singh with someone else. Put PVN Rao as DPM and Home Minister, or DPM and government leader in the Lok Sabha- Rajiv's Willie Whitelaw, in essence.
Economy: Singh goes from the Reserve Bank to Finance, Rao stiffens Rajiv's backbone and brings him around to conclude that economic reform should be the defining issue of his premiership.