Following a bitter campaign against her foreign birth, Sonia Gandhi decided to refuse the prime ministership. Former Finance minister Manmohan Singh is the most likely candidate to step up.

Sonia Gandhi, heir to India?s Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, tearfully gave up her chance to become prime minister yesterday to protect her new Congress government from damaging attacks over her Italian birth. Angry and upset, Congress lawmakers mobbed Gandhi and begged her to change her decision, which paves the way for the architect of the country?s modern economic reforms, Manmohan Singh, to take over the world?s largest democracy.

?I must humbly decline this post,? she told a chaotic party meeting in parliament?s timber-pannelled central hall, lined with life-sized portraits of former prime ministers, including her husband, Rajiv, and mother-in-law Indira Gandhi, who were both assassinated. Some media said Gandhi?s politician children, son Rahul and daughter Priyanka, encouraged her to drop out, fearing she would become a target for Hindu extremists.

Fighting to make herself heard above indignant shouts from her supporters, Gandhi pleaded: ?I request you to accept my decision and to recognise that I will not reverse it. It is my inner voice, my conscience,? said the 57-year-old Gandhi, an Indian citizen, adding she had never sought the top job and did not want her presence to weaken the government.

Gandhi did not publicly name a replacement, but the NDTV network said she was pushing for Singh. In a string of speeches marked by impassioned pleas, tears and breaking voices, Congress MPs said hundreds of millions of ordinary Indians had given her a mandate to rule and begged her to ignore attacks by Hindu nationalists over her foreign birth. ?Please remain with us, you cannot betray the people of India,? said one emotional MP, Mani Shankar Aiyer. ?The inner voice of the people of India is that you should be the prime minister.?

Anguished scenes

The shock withdrawal by the head of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, India?s equivalent of America?s Kennedys, triggered anguished scenes at the red sandstone parliament complex and outside her New Delhi home, where hundreds of supporters rallied to press her to change her mind.

One man stood on the roof of a car, held a home-made gun to his head and waved a stick to deter people trying to calm him. ?Call Sonia Gandhi! Tell her I will kill myself if she doesn?t become prime minister!? he said before being disarmed. Others lay down in the street or torched effigies of Gandhi?s opponents, who have run a bitter campaign targeting her Italian background since their humiliating election loss last week.

Gandhi would have been India?s first foreign-born leader and the fourth from the Nehru-Gandhi clan after Rajiv, Indira and Indira?s father, founding prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Her withdrawal, and the prospect of Singh leading Asia?s third-largest economy, spurred markets, helping stocks on the Bombay exchange post their second-biggest daily rally just a day after the worst plunge in the exchange?s 129-year history.

India?s markets have been spooked by anti-reform comments by left-wing parties, which hold more than 60 seats and had been supporting Gandhi without formally joining her coalition. As news of her possible withdrawal filtered out, the stock market rebounded sharply and recorded one of its biggest gains.

?The market has gone up because of news that Sonia is reluctant to be PM,? said Bharat Shah, director of Vikram Kenia Securities. ?This means that Manmohan Singh, who is very reformist, will become prime minister.? Gandhi and Singh met President Abdul Kalam earlier yesterday to begin talks about forming a government.

Gandhi said later she would meet Kalam again today. Kalam had invited Gandhi to meet him as leader of the biggest party in the new parliament, and is likely to accept Congress?s claim to power in the world?s largest democracy.

Sanjeev MIGLANI

PROFILE

Manmohan Singh: ?Liberator? of Indian economy

• One of the more non-political faces of India, Dr Manmohan Singh is best known as the ?liberator? of Indian economy. As the Union Finance minister in the Narasimha Rao government (1991-96), he liberalised the economy to lead India to globalisation. He worked as the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission from 1985 to 1987 and as Governor of the Reserve Bank for three years before that. He has also been the Central government?s Adviser on Economic affairs, besides international assignments at the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank. First elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1991, he has represented the Congress there since. In 1999, he contested the Lok Sabha elections from South Delhi, but lost. He is the current leader of the opposition in the Upper House. He has won awards for his work and contribution to society, including the Padma Vibhushan in 1987, the Euromoney Finance minister of the year 1993 and the Asia-money Finance minister of the year 1993 & 1994. Singh was born in Amritsar in September 1932 and studied economics in Chandigarh and Canada. He later taught at Punjab University. He has authored a book on Indian export trends.