Former PM Vishwanath Pratap Singh, changed course of India's political history

V P Singh's political career advanced at a blistering pace through the 1980s. He became Uttar Pradesh chief minister, Union commerce minister, Union finance minister, Union defence minister and finally prime minister - all in the space of a decade. Earlier, he had also been deputy minister - and subsequently minister of state - for commerce from October 1974 to March 1977. But his tenure in each of these offices was short.

The first in the commerce ministry, at two years and five months - promoted to minister of state for the last three - eventually proved to have been the longest.... And, yet, in each of his last three positions - as finance minister and defence minister in the Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress government, and prime minister in the subsequent Janata Dal government - as well as in the two-and-a-half-year interval when he held no official position at all, some of V P Singh's actions changed the course of Indian political history....

The best-remembered of these actions is undoubtedly his introduction, as prime minister, of 27% reservation in central government services for the socially and educationally backward classes, or other backward classes (OBCs), identified on the basis of caste. V P Singh's announcement, on August 7, 1990, drawing on the recommendations in the report of the Second Backward Classes Commission, chaired by Bindeshwari Prasad Mandal, remains the single-biggest step towards affirmative action in the country thereafter.