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She Knows Her Onions
Sonia Gandhi displays her political smarts, capitalizing on a weak economy and high prices to lead Congress to victory in key state elections
BY ANTHONY SPAETH

India has an enduring distrust of the outside world. In ancient times, Hindus were forbidden to "cross the waters"--to go abroad. That didn't stop the reverse traffic, however, and foreigners from the north, as well as others from the far reaches of Europe, conquered and colonized the subcontinent.

As with many things subcontinental, though, India's xenophobia is complex and sometimes contradictory. The country's most recent saintly figure, Mother Teresa, was a source of national pride, although she was an Albanian-born Catholic. And now, following some significant churnings of the local political scene, the most likely next prime minister is another lady in a sari who speaks Hindi with an exotic accent: in this case, the ineradicable stacatto of northern Italy. Sonia Gandhi has never run for office or held a government post. The Congress Party she controls is packed with ambitious heavyweights vying for the prime ministership. Sonia is almost aggressively shy: she made her first political speech but 11 months ago and treats the press like a contagion. Her only obvious assets are her name and family--she was the daughter-in-law of one former prime minister, Indira Gandhi, and is the widow of another, Rajiv--and a party that worships anyone with such a connection.

Or so it seemed until local election returns last month proved that the enigmatic, asthmatic, stony-faced Sonia Gandhi has her finger on India's national pulse--and a firm headlock on her fractious party. In two states and the local legislature for the capital territory of Delhi, Congress candidates demolished their archrivals from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and that could be the beginning of the end for the BJP-led coalition government of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. The eclipse of the BJP not only puts the Congress back in the sunshine, but has altered the destiny of Sonia Gandhi, 52, the architect of those electoral victories. It was assumed that she would never come forward as a prime minister, choosing to exert her power and influence from behind an anointed stand-in. That notion has been buried. "The idea of a regency has never worked in India," insists a Congress leader. "There's absolutely no question about it: she will be prime minister when the time comes."

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Daily

December 14, 1998

PANEL OF EXPERTS
How can India pull out of its slump?

POLL
Do you think Sonia Gandhi will be India's next Prime Minister?


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