INDIA: INDIAN OPPOSITION LEADER SONIA GANDHI RESIGNS AS HEAD OF INDIA'S MAIN OPPOSITION CONGRESS PARTY

Record ID: 1377060

  • Title: INDIA: INDIAN OPPOSITION LEADER SONIA GANDHI RESIGNS AS HEAD OF INDIA'S MAIN OPPOSITION CONGRESS PARTY
  • Date: 18th May 1999
  • Summary: (FILE) SLV/MCU GANDHI AT CONGRESS PARTY MEETING CALLED TO PRESENT HER CANDIDACY (6 SHOTS) SLV/SV GANDHI AT A CONGRESS PARTY RALLY, RECEIVING GARLAND (4 SHOTS) Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 2nd February 2015 13:21
  • Keywords:
  • Location: NEW DELHI,INDIA
  • Country: India
  • Topics: General,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAD5U18BQ9ABBTL9QYQ9BZRMTIM
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: Indian opposition leader Sonia Gandhi has resigned as head of India's main opposition Congress party but her fellow politicians have tried to persuade her to stay on.Some of her supporters began a hunger strike in response to her departure.
    Sonia Ghandia resigned Monday (May 17) after three senior colleagues had prompted the Italian born widow to quit, saying her foreign origins and inexperience made her unfit to lead the country.
    But senior members of the party's elite Congress Working Committee went to her home trying to persuade her to stay in the running to become India's prime minister in elections this autumn.
    Outside, party workers began a hunger strike aimed at changing her mind.
    "We are hopeful that she will listen to our appeal," party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said outside her home next to the party headquarters, where she left a working committee meeting midway through.
    Senior party leader Pranab Mukherjee had announced the resignation, telling reporters: "Congress President Sonia Gandhi has resigned."
    "I am pained by the lack of confidence in my ability to act in the best interest of the party and the country,"
    Mukherjee quoted Gandhi as saying in her letter of resignation.
    "Though born in a foreign land, I chose India as my country.I am Indian and I will remain so till my last breath.
    India is my motherland dearer to me than my own life," Gandhi was quoted as saying in the letter.
    The challenge to Gandhi's leadership came at the weekend in a letter to her from Sharad Pawar, leader of the opposition in the disbanded lower house of parliament, former lower house Speaker P.A.Sangma and Tariq Anwar.
    The three politicians said the Indian constitution should be changed to allow only a natural born Indian to hold the offices of the president, vice president and prime minister.
    But the working committee, the Congress's highest decision-making body closed ranks behind "Soniaji", as she is popularly called and said it had confidence in her abilities.
    Amoungst her key allies is Delhi chief minister Sheila Dixit, who on Tuesday herself offered to resign.
    "It reflects our true feelings.Without the leader who brought the party to power in three states and has given a direction to the Congress Party we are no where.We just do not want to be without the leader," Dixit said.
    The Congress, whose fortunes have been largely turned around by the presence of Gandhi, has urged her to stay on.
    Gandhi emerged from virtual seclusion to accept the leadership of the Congress party last year, seven years after the assassination of her husband.
    Last November she helped Congress to crushing victories over the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in three key states, burnishing her image as a vote-getter.
    Last month, she raised her profile by leading opposition groups in bringing down the BJP's 13-month-old coalition government in a confidence vote in parliament, forcing the country's third election in as many years.
  • Copyright Holder: ANI (India)
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