Rao very nearly retired from politics in 1991 . It was the assassination of the Congress President Rajiv Gandhi that persuaded him to make a comeback . As the Congress had won the largest number of seats in the 1991 elections , he had an opportunity to head the minority government as Prime Minister . He was the first person outside the Nehru-Gandhi family to serve as Prime Minister for five continuous years , the first to hail from the state of Andhra Pradesh , and also the first from southern India . Since Rao had not contested the general elections , he then participated in a by-election in Nandyal to join the parliament . Rao won from Nandyal with a victory margin of a record 5 lakh ( 500,000 ) votes and his win was recorded in the Guinness Book Of World Records and he was Prime Minister of India at that time ; later on , in 1996 , he was MP from Berhampur , Ganjam , Odisha . His cabinet included Sharad Pawar , himself a strong contender for the Prime Minister 's post , as Defence Minister . He also broke a convention by appointing a non-political economist and future prime minister , Manmohan Singh as his Finance Minister . He also appointed Subramanian Swamy , an Opposition party member as the Chairman of the Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade . This has been the only instance that an Opposition Party member was given a Cabinet rank post by the ruling party . He also sent Opposition leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee , to represent India in a UN meeting at Geneva
assassination of the Congress President Rajiv Gandhi
Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi
P. V. Narasimha Rao