Vishwanath Pratap Singh, India's seventh Prime Minister, struck Indian politics with the force of a tornado. Primarily remembered for implementing the recommendations of the Mandal Commission report, which provided reservations in Central government services for the first time to the Other Backward Classes, he deserves a place in history for much more-from conducting raids on the biggest business houses of his time when he was finance minister, to investigating murky defence deals as defence minister (which cost him his job); bringing together a divided Opposition to form an unlikely coalition government at the Centre comprising the BJP and the communist parties, to spearheading the biggest airlift evacuation in Indian history-of Indians stranded in Kuwait during the first Gulf War.