Enter Dr. Manmohan Singh.

There is a unique kind of tragedy in Indian politics—the tragedy of .

He is the man who "opened" Israel without formally recognizing it (relations were established in 1992). He brought the "Look East" policy to life, pivoting India toward ASEAN nations, predicting the rise of China and the need for India to counterbalance it decades before it became fashionable. The Congress party, for a long time, neglected him because he wasn't from the "Gandhi family." He was a regional leader who rose on merit. After his tenure ended in 1996, and the Congress lost the election, Rao was sidelined. Worse, he was implicated in a bribery scandal (the JMM bribery case—from which he was later acquitted), and the party distanced itself from him.