Congress (Party) to decide on Indian PM | BBC

Congress to decide on Indian PM


Gandhi could have the job if she
wants, come Congress members say

Members of the Congress Party are meeting on Saturday to decide whether to choose Sonia Gandhi as India's next prime minister.

The party won a shock victory in the general election and was returned to power after eight years in opposition.

Congress leaders have been holding talks with possible partners to form a coalition government.

But Mrs Gandhi has not said if she wants to be the fourth member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to hold the post.

More at the BBC

she was very much the leader in getting out the votes of the poor who were not benefiting from the success in the economy. while the news of growth and success was true, the benefit only went to a few and most were left out of it.

i do worry about assasinations if she does become pm. considering her hindu husband and mother in law were killed , imagine what the fanatics will do if a catholic italian born and later naturalized indian citizen becomes pm .

but considering congress won with sonia as head of the party i have faith in most of the citizens of the country. and while the fanatics may be fewer in numbers, they are still fanatics and willing to kill.

Cong leaders meet to elect Sonia leader as Left mulls its role

The newly elected MPs of the Congress are arriving in New Delhi for Saturday’s meeting in which electing Sonia as their leader is a mere formality.

http://www.expressindia.com/election/fullestory.php?type=ei&content_id=31457

And lots of other angles/opinions regarding this election are here:

http://www.indianexpress.com/

Washington Post:

Bad news for Indo-US ties

In 1998, when Atal Behari Vajpayee took the helm of the world’s largest democracy, nobody predicted the extent of his success or his alignment with US interests. But if all that was unexpected, so was yesterday’s news. He is said to have been punished for the pro-market reforms that fostered India’s high-tech boom; voters in the villages felt left out and took their revenge at the ballot box. This suggests that even the world’s most successful economic reformers run big political risks.

India will now be governed by a coalition dominated by the Congress Party, the political vehicle of the Gandhi family. Mrs Sonia Gandhi can be expected to pursue her predecessor’s rapprochement with Pakistan; on the economy, they are likely to offer less continuity, though the difference may be partly rhetorical. Mr Vajpayee’s reforms are too entrenched to be rolled back.

The sharpest discontinuity is likely to come in relations with the US and possibly with US allies such as Israel. India has become a leading customer for Israeli weapons technology. With Mr Vajpayee in office, the Bush administration hoped that India might be persuaded to send peacekeepers to Iraq — a remarkable shift from the Cold War, when India proudly led the Non-Aligned Movement and seized every opportunity to tweak American leadership. The Congress-led coalition is expected to swing back to traditional anti-Americanism, sounding off against the US at the UN and perhaps challenging US influence in the Middle East by launching its own peace initiative. All of which would test the Bush administration’s reserves of forbearance and tact. But then again, who knows? India’s democracy excels at defying expert predictions.

http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=31459

it's bad news for the extremists in the bush administration and the corrupt politicians and extremist hindus in india. but for most people in both countries it should be good news.

It's difficult to say yet how the new Congress Party will effect the free-market order in India, but while I can see someone like Kucinich hailing this political shift there, I'm not convinced Kerry would.

it's more about listening and trying to understand others. bush doesn't understand other cultures and doesn't care. to bush it's all black and white. kerry knows things are not so simple and would be willing to work with others unlike bush.