Nevertheless, as we have seen, Rajiv made a last-ditch effort to attract Hindu votes. In 1989, he turned up in the holy city of Ayodhya and inaugurated the election campaign by promising Ram Rajya. This was quite extraordinary because Rajiv was a very unlikely devotee of Lord Ram. He was not in the least religious, like the majority of Doon School boys. Also, as he had surrounded himself with a coterie of these boys, his promise of Ram Rajya was not convincing. It only served to advance the BJP’s prospects.
