Triumph of Gandhi dynasty's darling

INDIA loves political theatre and Sonia Gandhi will not disappoint as she keeps the world’s largest democracy on tenterhooks this weekend.

The Italian-born leader of India’s victorious Congress party, is almost certain to become the country’s next Prime Minister following her election yesterday as her party’s parliamentary chief, but she is expected to take a few days to accept.

She was unanimously chosen by her fellow MPs and thus becomes the first choice of Congress for the position of Prime Minister.

This does not confirm the 58-year-old widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi as the next Indian leader but it puts the post firmly within her grasp.

"The job is hers should she want it," said a Congress official. "The other factor of course will be the Leftist and other parties with whom we’re allied. They’ll be meeting over the weekend but most have already said they’ll accept Mrs Gandhi.

"No one else is being put up for the position and that makes Mrs Gandhi the prima donna of Indian politics."

If the top job goes to Gandhi, she will be the fourth member of India’s legendary Nehru-Gandhi family to hold the premiership.

In taking the helm, she would be helping to revive the fortunes of a dynasty that led India to freedom and ran the nation for the best part of 40 years after independence from Britain in 1947.

In recent years, however, Congress has suffered a decline that was widely regarded as terminal - a fact that made this week’s election victory all the more sensational.

Gandhi, who took Indian citizenship in 1983, has said her party’s resounding election victory proved that her Italian heritage was not a handicap.

But not all agree that she is the right person to become Prime Minister. Some see her lack of experience as more of a handicap than her foreign origin.

"She’s a wonderful party leader but I’m not sure she should be the leader of the country," said one Congress stalwart. "She’d be more of an asset in the background. But that’s all academic now."

The only other person whose name has been mentioned for the premiership is former Congress finance minister Manmohan Singh, the man responsible for kick-starting liberalisation of the Indian economy and introducing much-needed economic reforms in 1991.

It now seems he will regain his finance portfolio and attempt to pursue the privatisation programme of the just-ousted BJP-lead coalition government.

As Congress prepares to form its own coalition with India’s Communist party, there are concerns in the business sector.

The Marxists, who are due to claim some key ministries after scoring a record election tally, have said they want to halt the sale of profitable companies.

The prospect of a reverse in the economic reforms programme has already sent the country’s financial markets into their biggest one-day decline in four years.

But Gandhi and Congress heavyweights have sought to assure investors that the new government will be committed to "reforms and policies to promote investment".

They have also stressed that Congress would continue to work with Pakistan towards a solution of the contentious issue of Kashmir.

Appearing in public in recent days, Gandhi has shown herself confident and relaxed. Greeting hordes of jubilant supporters on Friday outside the headquarters of the Congress party in the capital, Delhi, she waved and smiled, apparently unfazed by the surprise poll results that have catapulted her centre-stage.

All this sits at odds with the image of Gandhi, who has long been regarded as a reluctant and near-reclusive politician. A former language student in Cambridge, she is said to have begged her late husband not to enter politics after the 1984 assassination of his mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

After Rajiv was assassinated, she kept a low profile for seven years, only agreeing to take charge of Congress in 1998 at the behest of party elders.

She has claimed repeatedly that she did enter politics to become Prime Minister.

Having been first elected to parliament in the election of 1999, Gandhi is a relative newcomer in the world of Indian politics. But those close to her say she has made fast progress during her years as leader of the opposition.

"Initially, there were her language and communication problems," says one insider. "Also, she didn’t know much about the workings of the political system. But she’s a quick learner and she has a lot of common sense. She understands her limitations and learns from those around her."

Gandhi can draw on the experience of about a dozen advisers, many of whom were players in the time of her late mother-in-law, Indira.

"Sonia Gandhi has some trusted advisers but it’s not a cabal or a coterie of people as such," says a lawyer close to the Congress leader. "There’s no inner circle. She’s very democratic and takes inputs from various sources. Basically, she’s a consensus person."

Senior Congress figures remark on her tireless campaigning while on this year’s election trail as well as her grasp of the issues that were important to the electorate, particularly unemployment and problems afflicting the agricultural sector. Another crucial element has been the induction into the party of new blood.

Leader of the pack is Gandhi’s son, Rahul, 33, who was elected to the old Gandhi family seat of Amethi in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Despite his self-effacing manner, there is no doubting the impact made on the electorate by his arrival on the political scene. Also in evidence has been the charismatic Priyanka, Rahul’s younger sister, who campaigned energetically for her mother.

The addition to the mix of another generation of Gandhis has clearly boosted the fortunes of Congress.

There are about half a dozen new faces among the newly-elected MPs and most of them are with Congress.

These are the ‘babalog’, the young crowd, or to use the buzzword of the Indian media, the ‘GenNext’: cyber-savvy, computer-literate, young urban professionals.

This being India, they nearly all have good business degrees and are the products of strong and ambitious political dynasties, though none can or would dare compete with the India’s ‘first family’, the Gandhis.