In the Rajiv Gandhi government, he was Minister for Personnel, Defence production and later held independent charge of Civil Aviation and Tourism. He has also held a number of important positions in the party ever since Sonia Gandhi took over the presidency of the party. He is largely known for introducing the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award, India in 1992. He was the chairman of the manifesto committee of the party during the 1999 Lok Sabha election. As speaker of the Lok Sabha, he had begun or contributed in initiatives on information dissemination to members of the Parliament (through computerisation and modernisation), construction of Parliament Library Building and broadcast of Lok Sabha proceedings, including live broadcast of Question Hour of both houses of the parliament. Between 1991 and 1995, he was a member/leader of Indian parliamentary delegations to various international parliamentary conferences. He became Home Minister in 2004. A former Lok Sabha speaker, Shivraj Patil lost in the 2004 polls from Latur in Maharashtra, but has still landed up the second most important position in the Union Cabinet—that of the Home Minister. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in July 2004. Widely seen as an ineffective minister, his tenure as home minister was marred by one debacle after another and he faced increasing calls for his resignation, eventually forcing it due to the mishandling in the events leading up to and after the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Not to be forgotten also are the 2006 Malegaon bombings, at a Muslim graveyard. United States Ambassador David Mulford in an embassy cable described his removal after the Mumbai terrorist attack as inevitable and called him "inept" and "asleep on the watch". Patil is accused for not sending the Central Reserve Police Force to Nandigram, even after repeated requests by the West Bengal government, to restore law and order in the area and the events resulted in police firing and killing of men and women in Nandigram. Patil's name was considered a likely candidate in 2007 presidential election. However, after the Left opposed his candidacy, Sonia Gandhi proposed Pratibha Patil, Governor of Rajasthan, as the presidential candidate. Shivraj Patil was later considered a possible candidate for the post of Vice-President of India. On 30 November 2008, just four days after Bombay blasts, Patil resigned from his position of Home Minister in Union Cabinet taking moral responsibility for the security lapse that led to the November