The Gandhi-Nehru dynasty rises from a decade-long slumber

1.00pm - By STEPHEN KHAN

It was the result they said could not happen. The world's largest democracy rode the crest of a surging economic wave. Peace had been brokered with Pakistan. And the national cricket team ruled the world.

Such times spawn feel good factors. That alone should have been enough to secure victory in India's General Election for the ruling Hindu-nationalist BJP. Add to this mix an apparently disjointed opposition and the result of the month-long electoral exercise appeared a formality.

Then, remarkably, something began to stir. It was the world's most enduring political dynasty. On Thursday morning India awoke to discover that the Gandhi-Nehru clan had risen from a decade-long slumber. And today an Italian widow is on the brink of becoming the fourth member of the family to be Prime Minister of the world's largest democracy.

With counting almost over, Congress and its allies were likely to win 218 seats in the 545-seat parliament and the BJP-led coalition 186. Left parties which have promised to support Congress were ahead in 63 constituencies.

Under the leadership of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Hindu-nationalist BJP have governed India for almost six years. His reign is at an end.

"The Congress party will take the lead to ensure our country has a strong, stable and secular government at the earliest," the apparent Prime Minister in waiting, Sonia Gandhi said.

It is by any standards a remarkable rise to power. The daughter of a labourer from Turin, she met her future husband when she was a language student in Cambridge, England.

She married into the dynasty 36 years ago and was propelled into the forefront of the Indian political scene when her husband Rajiv was picked as the successor to the Gandhi-Nehru crown, following the death of his brother in a plane crash in 1980.

After distancing herself from politics following her husband's assassination in 1991, Mrs Gandhi was initially seen as a reluctant and near-reclusive politician.

She officially took charge of the Congress party in 1998 and was elected to parliament in the last elections in 1999.

Before the surprise results in the current general election, Mrs Gandhi's future in Indian politics had looked uncertain.

Under her leadership, the party had turned in its worst performance since independence in the 1999 general elections. Congress also performed indifferently in last year's state elections.

During the campaign Gandhi has been criticised by rivals because she was born in Italy and speaks Hindi with an accent. But then her children were deployed. It appears to have been a masterstroke, that reached out to the country's new generation.

In stark contrast, the long political career of Atal Bihari Vajpayee seems to be at an end.

The 79-year-old bachelor - who has arthritic knees and kidney disease - was first elected to the Lok Sabha, the lawmaking lower house of Parliament, in 1957. He stepped down on Thursday.

Ecstatic, if surprised, supporters beat drums and danced in the streets in New Delhi as the extent of the upset by Congress quickly became clear within two hours of counting starting.

Upon the balcony of India Coffee House high above Connaght Place in the heart of New Delhi, retired lawyers and doctors were poring over the results in the pages of the Indian newspapers. Even these seasoned observers of the unpredictable world of Indian politics were shocked.

Leaning on green bakelite tables in the coffee house that is reminiscent of a 1970s airport lounge, self-styled political experts who have seen generation of Gandhi-Nehrus come and go proclaimed that this was their most astonishing feat.

Just two months ago here and in countless other similar establishments across this vast country, the dynasty's political obituary was being written. Now they are back.

But overriding astonishment at the return of the sub-continent's first family is a sense of utter incredulity that Vajpayee and his alliance have managed to throw away a seemingly unassailable lead.


"India's Shining" ran their self-satisfied slogan. Above a new motorway leading to Delhi's international airport is a vast portrait of Vajpayee. Arm outstretched to his people, he stradles the words 'Atal Bihar Vajpayee's gift to the nation'.

The road is invariably clogged with traffic, but Vajpayee's allies were convinced they had made India better off. And in the metropolitan areas, it is a difficult argument to counter. Gleaming call centres rise from dusty building sites, taking their place alongside shimmering five-star hotels.

As well as feeling wealthier, the urban middle classes felt safer, so the argument went. After decades of animosity which two years ago ran to the brink of nuclear confrontation the prospect of peace with Pakistan seems real. They've even been playing cricket together again, an encounter the Indians won.

But there is another India. It is an India of the villages. An India of peasants and the perpetually poor. "What 'India Shining' are we talking about? We are dying hungry here," said Santram, a farmer just 45 miles from the new malls of the capital.

They know nothing of the economic boom, the internet and international telecommunications. They know little of urban coffee houses. They do, however, know about democracy.

And so, the often-forgotten poor were able to wield political muscle in a style that is unimaginable almost anywhere else in the third world.

The Congress Party argued that the country's rural poor had been left behind by the government's push for economic growth. More than 300-million Indians still live on less than 60p a day.

India's masses recalled the legend of the Gandhi-Nehru clan. Memories of house building programmes and redistribution of wealth under Indira Gandhi run strong.

With Indira's daughter-in-law Sonia running the party they have new champions. Sonia is joined by her son Rahul. At just 33, he is the rising star of Congress and easily won his own seat in the family's Uttar Pradesh.

He paid tribute to his mother for the dramatic improvement of the grand old party that led India to independence in 1947. "I have seen my mother fight with her back to the wall. And she has won. She has won against all odds," he said, smiling broadly and garlanded with marigolds.

Also batting for the clan is Priyanka his younger sister, who did not stand for election but is widely regarded as a key Congress player.

Their father, Rajiv Gandhi, was killed by a suicide bomber in 1991, seven years after his mother, Indira, was assassinated. Rahul's great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, was independent India's first prime minister.

Now, once again Congress appears to be in pole position. Sonia Gandhi and her allies must still finalise the shape of the government they hope to form before the new parliament meets. That could be as early as Monday.

Outside Sonia Gandhi's Delhi residence, supporters celebrated with drums and firecrackers.

"They said she is a foreigner, but the people have given them a reply," said Rati Lal Kala, 35, carrying a huge Congress flag and wearing a scarf in Congress' saffron, white and green colours.

Despite claiming credit for energising India's economy and pushing through market led reforms, Vajpayee also became saddled with the reputation of promoting Hindu nationalism.

While he has tried to appeal to the country's 100 million Muslims and other minority groups, the BJP remains to most non-Hindus an exclusive party.

Riots which struck the western state of Gujarat in 2002 saw more than 1000 people, mainly muslims, die and critics have said the conditions which led to the riots were created by local BJP members.

While it is the mobilising of the rural poor that delivered victory for Congress, the urban elite failed to flock to the BJP's side. Many signalled that unease about more extreme elements of the BJP sent them back into the arms of Congress's brand of pan-Indian secularism. Others simply chose not to vote at all.

The result was perhaps the most remarkable global election result since the turmoil of the US presidential vote in 200, with its hanging chads, confrontation in Florida and visits to the Supreme Court.

"I am in shock. This kind of a lead was never expected. This is all because of Rahul and Priyanka," said one jubilant supporter outside the Gandhi home.

And across the country this morning Indians were gasping for breath and waiting to see what the next, inexperienced, generation of their de-facto Royal Family can deliver.

- Additional reporting from Jeremy Copeland in New Delhi

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