Congress Party Leaders Resign in India

NEW DELHI – Top members of Sonia Gandhi’s Congress Party resigned to protest her surprise decision refusing to take the job of prime minister, party leaders said Wednesday, while others said they would back a 71-year-old economic reformer for the post.

The split within Congress only deepened India’s political turmoil in the week since an alliance led by Gandhi unexpectedly won parliamentary elections. She again refused to take the job and backed Manmohan Singh, a former finance minister and architect of economic reforms in the world’s largest democracy.

New Delhi Television said Gandhi had asked the party to choose an alternative candidate quickly, so the swearing-in can take place on Thursday. Gandhi wants to leave town on Friday, the 13th anniversary of the assassination of her husband, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the station reported.

But Ambika Soni, a party leader close to Gandhi, said several of the Congress Working Committee’s 23 members had resigned. The members of the committee – the party’s highest decision-making body – would not change their minds.

“We will not take back our resignations. She must change her decision,” Ambika Soni, a party leader close to Gandhi, told a news conference.

As she spoke, a mob of Gandhi’s supporters burst in the Congress’ headquarters, breaking windows and a door in the building, next door to Gandhi’s house. By mid afternoon more than 1,000 people had gathered outside, chanting pro-Gandhi slogans and waving party and Indian flags.

The crowd became angry as news broke that other party leaders had tapped Manmohan Singh, a 71-year-old economic reformer, as their choice for prime minister. Gandhi backs Singh.

On Wednesday morning, Jairam Ramesh, a senior party official, had told The Associated Press that Congress supported Singh, the Oxford-educated former finance minister who was the architect of India’s free-market reforms of the early 1990s.

That decision came after the Italian-born Gandhi bowed out Tuesday, stunning her supporters but pleasing Hindu nationalists who opposed the idea of having a foreign-born leader. She became an Indian citizen 21 years ago.

Indian markets, which plunged earlier this week over fears of an unstable coalition under Gandhi, opened higher Wednesday on news that Singh was likely to head the new Congress-led government.

If he gets the go-ahead from President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Singh will take the oath of office and close an episode of political drama and uncertainty since the Congress and its allies swept into power in parliamentary elections last week.

Singh, educated at Oxford, was the architect of India’s free-market reforms of the early 1990s. His admirers credit him with helping to save the country’s socialist-style economy from near collapse at the time, and they see him as the best person to maintain India’s economic growth.

In the elections, Congress party and its allies trounced the Hindu-nationalist party of the outgoing prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and his Democratic National Alliance. Congress rode in on a wave of discontent among millions of impoverished Indians who feel left out of the country’s economic boom.

But the Congress-led alliance did not win an outright majority in parliament and must form a minority government relying on support of two powerful communist parties, raising fears that economic liberalization of recent years well be reversed.

After Gandhi announced her decision Tuesday, Congress lawmakers had shouted and pleaded with her to change her mind. But she declined.

“I request you to accept my decision,” she said, adding that she would not reconsider. “It is my inner voice, my conscience. My responsibility at this critical time is to provide India with a secular government that is strong and stable.”

Gandhi visited the homes of senior allies Wednesday, seeking their support for Singh.

Gandhi would have been the fourth member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to be prime minister. Gandhi’s husband, Rajiv, was killed by a suicide bomber in 1991 and mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, was shot to death by her own bodyguards in 1984. Both served as prime minister.