He was president of the paint firm Jenson and Nicholson at the time when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi persuaded him to change career.
Later, he left the INC for Janata Dal and was elected to the 9th Lok Sabha from Bilhaur in 1989, where he was Union Minister for Commerce and Tourism (December–November 1990).
According to then petroleum secretary Avtar Singh Gill, Rajiv Gandhi 's "errand boy", Lalit Suri informed him at the eve of the massacre that Arun Nehru gave "clearance" for the killings in Delhi.. His strategy was to "catch Sikh youth, fling a tyre over their heads, douse them with kerosene and set them on fire.".
[7][8] During his tenure as minister in the Home department in 1985–86, he was allegedly involved in the Czech pistol case, where a deal with the Czechoslovakian firm Merkuria Foreign Trade Corp. had resulted in a loss of around ₹2.5 million (US$29,000).
[10] The trial court, however, rejected the CBI report and found Nehru's involvement enough to continue the proceedings.