Is Ilaiyaraaja style a continuation of MSV or a continuation of Naushad - Madan Mohan - SDBurman?

We tend to easily block Raja as a part of KVM-MSV continuum. Recently spent close to 6 hours of listening to all 50s to late 60s Hindi film songs and what struck me was the similarity and extension of ideas from the legends of 60s in Hindi film music - extended, embellished and perfected.
Melodic similarities of songs from this golden era into Raja songs was not just limited to arrangements and tunes, but also on how words were written. His entry directly forced lyricists to write ghazal like lines which were indeed found in some Sridhar movies, but not continued. This idea is little controversial to say that Raja did not conquer Hindi film music dominance with something totally new, but with Hindi film music sensibilities from a better era. but that seems like the pattern to me.