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» 05/18/2004 16:46
INDIA
Gandhi turns down position of Prime Minister

 New Delhi (AsiaNews) – Sonia Gandhi will not become India's next prime minister.

''I must humbly decline the nomination'', Gandhi  said at a meeting today with Congress Party deputies, who under her leadership won the recent general elections.

This morning Gandhi asked to have time to make a decision. Theoretically, Gandhi would have automatically been assigned the position of prime minister after winning the support of 320 of 543 seats in the latest general election victory.

Meanwhile India's stock exchange had reacted positively to the news that Gandhi might  become the country's new prime minister, rising sharply again by 8.6% after yesterday's drop of 15%. The reason seemed lay in the fact that even the Communist parties have shown their backing for Gandhi. The Communists presence in parliament had previously raised fears about a freeze in the privatization programs launched by the defeated BJP party.

The Congress party leader's second thoughts were unofficially reported to be inspired by her children's asking her not to accept the position. According to the Marxist Communist leader, Somnath Chatterjee, Gandhi's children "didn't want her to become the prime minister, perhaps for reason of her own safety".

Both Gandhi's husband, Rajiv, and mother-in-law, Indira, were assassinated for political reasons in 1991 and 1984. 

BJP had shown hostility to the prospect of an "outsider" heading government, as seen in its threat to boycott the Gandhi's investiture ceremony. BJP president, Venklah Naidu, said on television that the party-sponsored protest served to voice the feelings of citizens against Gandhi because of her foreign origins, like the student members of the Akhil Bharitiya Vidharti Parishad (ABVP) who rallied while holding up banners that read e "Go home!" and "Student Power, National Power".  
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See also
05/20/2004 india
Manmohan Singh will be Prime Minister, bishops satisfied
05/20/2004 INDIA
New government by religious minorities promises secular leadership
by Nirmala Carvalho
05/19/2004 india
Catholic leaders say Sonia Gandhi refusal is "a very Christian decision"
05/24/2004 india
Hindutva regime is ended
05/18/2009 INDIA
Rahul Gandhi, the “Tsunami” that awakened the younger generation
by CT Nilesh

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