Gandhi Gives Up Bid to Lead India

By BETH DUFF-BROWN

Associated Press Writer

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NEW DELHI (AP) - Sonia Gandhi has abandoned her plans to become India's first foreign-born prime minister, members of her Congress party and its allies said Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, Gandhi met with President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam but did not, as widely expected, leave with his approval to form a minority government.

Gandhi said she would meet with the head of state again on Wednesday.

In the meantime, financial markets soared on speculation that someone else would lead the country following last week's electoral upset of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee National Democratic Alliance coalition.
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More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4103756,00.html

Nothing like dollaracracy in action!

If she takes the position, they'll just kill her.

I'm beginning to think political solutions are no longer possible.

It seems the more I learn about history the more you can trace every single event and the resons behind it to money.

I should have said I can no longer delude myself into believing that a political solution is possible. ;)

the fanatics would probably have killed her. they killed her relatives who were hindu, so no doubt they would have a foreign born catholic. sad that a minority of fanatics can overpower the majority of the people who wanted her .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3721863.stm

Sonia Gandhi turns down PM post

India's Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi has said she will not be the country's next prime minister.

"I must humbly decline this post," she told an emergency meeting of her party MPs on Tuesday

You need alliances to form a government, but different parties rarely agreee on anything. And the communists oppose the free trade reforms that have propelled India's economy into kick-ass status. They're all about socializing everything.

which is what led to her electoral result in the first place.

What I see here is she is not going to be PM. That doesn't necessarily mean that her party might not form a coalition of the left.

It's the same all over: most people are not benefiting from the economy in the way they did a generation ago (in the developed world) or at all (in the developing world).

And we all know it. We don't give a s--t about the stock market. We all figured out, through the educational mechanism of 401(k)s, that its "play money" or "playing with other people's money".

The only returns we care about come on a check twice a month, and job security, and health care. Bush keeps saying "the economy is strong", but a growing plurality (soon to be a majority) say "for whom?"

India is also a key country both for southwest Asia (our current concern) and for China (our biggest trading partner). The Chavezization of India would be perceived as a clear threat by the U.S.

I agree with Gandhi's Congress party but strongly disagree with the communists. The states in India that are controlled by the communists have the worst economies. Government has its place but it can't own everything. Some industries have to be privatized.

Many of Congress's social programs like public education, free meals for kids, free drinking water, free birth control, etc. are excellent programs.


I know the BJP has run roughshod over India's poor but socialism is not the way to fix it. I don't think the commies even want to help. If they wanted to help India, they could have allied themselves with Congress and support Sonia Gandhi.

Oh, and most communist leaders in India are quite wealthy.

I seem to recall the party that made India's economy so "kick ass" getting it's ass kicked in the election. Considering India has on the neighborhood of 1.2 billion people maybe a good majority of those people didn't find the economy so "kick ass" to them which is why they voted for socialists. It seems that those poor downtroddened investors were afraid they wouldn't get enough freedom to run roughshod over the teeming masses of peasants so they caused the markets to crash and run Gandhi out of power.

Her party is the Congress Party.

I was referring to the Communist parties that tend to destroy economies and make everyone suffer equally. Except of course the commie leaders who live quite lavishly in their mansions and drive expensive imported cars.

so obviously there were a good amount of those 1.8 billion people that felt they'd be better off under the communists than in the swell indian economy.

It's not that hard to hoodwink people. Especially if they are uneducated. All you have to do is hand out free stuff like alcohol, clothes, food, etc.

If you think the 2000 US election was bad, India has some of the sketchiest elections of all democratic nations. Voter fraud and ballot stuffing is rampant. Some politicians even have private armies similar to nazi brownshirts that intimidate voters.

I'm Indian and my family lived under Communist control in Kerala for many years. It was no cup of tea. Here's an example: in the old days, anyone could go to my grandfather's farm and steal crops because "it's everybody's land". That state has done much better once Congress took over. They opened it up to fair trade and more private ownership of industry.

Like Al Pacino said in Scarface: "I kill communists for fun, but for a green card, I carve them up real nice!"

not that they made the right decision. That's the whole thing about 'democracy', you give people the right to make the wrong decision.

many were left behind when it came to who benefited from the growth.

Her family doesn't have a very good track record when it comes to dieing of natural causes.

I can't blame her for not wanting to follow her late husband and MIL, but I have to wonder why is she involved in politics at all if she's not interested in being PM? Surely, she knows the possiblity would eventually present itself?

i thought she gave up a bid to lead poison a la BFEE... Sorry that parrot thread still has me crack(ered) up!