|
|
 |
 |
| Sunday, 16 May 2004 |
 |
|
 |
World |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
India's Congress chooses PM as left ponders role NEW DELHI, May 15 (Reuters) India's new ruling party meets on Saturday to choose the country's next prime minister - almost certainly Italian-born Sonia Gandhi - as the country's communists gather to decide if they will join the new government. The Congress party is expected to choose Gandhi, the torch-bearer of India's venerable Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, as its parliamentary leader, and therefore India's next prime minister, in a brief meeting after winning the support of allies. Leftist parties, which hold more than 60 of the new parliament's 545 seats and which back Gandhi as PM, will take three days to decide whether to join the new government or simply support it from outside a formal coalition. They are also to finalise the economic policies they would like the new government to adopt. Gandhi ousted India's ruling Hindu nationalists this week in a stunning election victory that surprised everyone, including Congress, but fell short of a clear majority and needs new partners to rule. The pivotal power of the leftist parties, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) with more than 30 seats, has caused alarm in markets over the future of privatisations and other economic reforms in Asia's third-largest economy. Stocks and the rupee crashed to their lowest levels in months on Friday after a day of unnerving comments by communist leaders. But Congress has vowed to continue the reforms it started more than a decade ago when it broke India out of socialist-style economics and which were continued by the ousted Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition. "We are not against disinvestment per se if it is shown to be in (the) national interest," said Congress leader Manmohan Singh, who was finance minister when reforms were launched in the early 1990s and a front-runner for the job again. "The investor community can rest assured that the new central government will pursue policies to create a favourable climate for growth of savings and investment, leading to rapid growth of output." Gandhi however is still considered a political novice after formally taking over Congress in 1998, seven years after her husband, former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, was assassinated in 1991. But analysts say her unexpected and resounding win after counting in the largest democratic vote on earth has guaranteed her the prime ministership. Despite its commitment to reforms, analysts expect Congress to repackage the changes after hundreds of millions of India's poor threw the BJP out because it failed to pass on the benefits of a booming economy. They say the reforms will be re-designed to allow benefits to percolate to the rural poor, instead of being restricted to urban upper classes as widely perceived. |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
