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| Monday, 19 January 2004 |
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Indian opposition hunts for allies and a leader NEW DELHI, Sunday (AFP) India's opposition has begun a hunt for a prime ministerial candidate to match the formidable image of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee ahead of parliamentary polls likely be held in April. The main opposition Congress party's leader - Italian-born Sonia Gandhi - has decided to keep herself away from the race, at least for the moment. "We never impose our leadership on other parties," Gandhi told reporters in Bombay recently. "This question (of who will be prime minister) will be decided by the people of the country." Gandhi, 56, was until recently being projected by her party as its prime ministerial candidate, but with voices of dissent from prospective allies the issue has been now kept in limbo. The Congress has started an intense exercise to forge new alliances with regional parties while also patching up relations with old foes. On the ruling side there is a structured coalition led by Vajpayee, 79, of about two dozen parties that have more or less remained together since 1999, the opposition has not been able to project a united front. Until recently, the Congress was not even in favour of coalitions but this has now changed with the largest opposition party actively seeking allies to counter the ruling conglomerate. The biggest problem, however, remains the question of who will be prime minister should the opposition win - most prospective Congress allies are not willing to accept Gandhi as their leader. Their main opposition to her candidature is that she was not born in India and only assumed Indian citizenship after her marriage to assassinated prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in the early eighties. The ruling Hindu nationalists have made Gandhi's foreign origin one of their main election issues. Gandhi is also considered to be a far less experienced leader politically, having joined active politics only in 1996 at the urgings of her party, compared with Vajpayee's more than five decades of political life as an MP. A master orator in Hindi and a leader of increasing international stature, Vajpayee's public ratings have always been far ahead of Gandhi, whose faltering Hindi has often been a subject of ridicule by the ruling alliance leaders. With Gandhi not staking a claim to prime ministership, the floor has opened for a flurry of leaders - former prime ministers, ministers and also regional satraps - holding considerable grassroots clout. One of the names being floated is that of former premier P.V. Narasimha Rao, who ushered in the first wave of economic reforms in the country in 1991. Rao, a member of the Congress party, is not actively involved in party politics but commands considerable respect among its leaders, who once served under him. Rao's finance minister, Manmohan Singh, considered the architect of India's economic reforms, is another candidate. A low profile Congress leader, he is in the inner coterie of Gandhi and according to analysts could emerge as a "black horse" candidate should the opposition alliance win a majority. Another former prime minister, Chandrashekhar, who uses only one name, is also a leader who commands respect from political parties across the spectrum. A former Congressman, Chandrashekhar now heads a socialist party. Many high profile leaders of today are considered to have been his proteges. Former defence minister and also a socialist party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav is another serious candidate. His name was shortlisted for the post in 1998 but he lost out due to lack of consensus among the various opposition parties. Yadav, a former wrestler, today rules the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh. |
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