Look back at the exhilarating yet chaotic scenes after Lok Sabha elections in 1996. The Congress had been handed a resounding defeat and a coalition headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee of the BJP lasted a mere 13 days. As non Congress and non BJP parties and leaders huddled together to form a government and nominate a prime minister, the name of the late Jyoti Basu kept cropping up frequently. After much debate, the party bosses at CPI (M) vetoed the idea of Jyoti Basu as a prime minister. Many party leaders , in hindsight, call it a historic blunder. That was perhaps the first and last time a Marxist came close to becoming the prime minister of India.
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