Gandhi Widow Rejects Party Leader’s Post

The Italian-born widow of slain Indian leader Rajiv Gandhi on Thursday flatly rejected efforts by her husband’s Congress-I Party to draft her as his replacement, plunging India’s longest-ruling party into its worst leadership crisis and deepening the nation’s political uncertainty.

The intensely private Sonia Gandhi released her written statement, which politely but firmly ended the party’s desperate move to install her as its president, as thousands of mourners in a line stretching nearly a mile, most of them weeping and clutching flowers, continued to file past her husband’s flag-draped coffin.

It was there that Gandhi’s 43-year-old widow spent the day Thursday, again dressed in mourning white, seated beside his remains and shunning all requests for comment on the political crisis around her.

“I am deeply touched by the trust placed on me by the Congress Working Committee,” declared the curt, written statement issued by her aides. “However, the tragedy that has befallen my children and myself does not make it possible for me to accept the presidentship.”

Her rejection, after her nomination by the traditionally dynastic Congress-I leadership in a dramatic announcement late Wednesday, was not unexpected. Sonia Gandhi has never held a public office and has resisted all attempts to entice her to run.

Political enemies of the Congress-I, who had blasted the nomination the day before, remained wary, some suggesting that her rejection may be a political ploy to bolster support for the move.

The party’s leadership had little to say about her announcement, which most analysts saw as a sharp blow to Congress-I’s prospects in the nation’s crucial parliamentary elections.

The voting began Monday, but the second and third rounds, originally scheduled to be held within days, were postponed until mid-June after the former prime minister was assassinated by a bomb explosion at a Tuesday night election rally in south India.

Even after Sonia Gandhi’s rejection, Congress-I leaders outside New Delhi who had yet to hear the news continued to issue public pronouncements gushing with devotion to their newest Gandhi leader. The outspoken praise seemed aimed at counteracting criticism that the choice of Gandhi’s widow underscored the Congress-I’s dependence on a single family dynasty, beginning with Jawaharlal Nehru and continuing through his daughter, Indira Gandhi, and her son, Rajiv.

Aside from embarrassing the party, Sonia Gandhi’s statement raised doubts about the Congress-I’s ability to harness a sympathy wave next month similar to the one enjoyed by Rajiv Gandhi after his mother was assassinated in 1984. And it again left the party with no clear leader to serve as prime minister even if it should win a majority of parliamentary seats.

At a press conference an hour after Sonia Gandhi’s announcement, the party leadership tried to put the best face on events.

“The party will take a decision at the appropriate time,” a grim-faced Pranab Mukherji, the party’s spokesman, said in refusing attempts to pin him down on the leadership issue.

“Tomorrow is the funeral. We will meet after cremation is over,” Mukherji said, adding that the party may have jumped the gun on its nomination because “we thought that it would be desirable to fill the vacuum as soon as possible.”

Outside the crisis politics in the capital, elaborate preparations were under way for Gandhi’s state funeral and cremation, an event scheduled for 4 p.m. today. Vice President Dan Quayle, Britain’s Prince Charles and dozens of other world leaders are scheduled to attend. Among them are Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s former prime minister and friend of Rajiv Gandhi, who said Thursday as she arrived in New Delhi, “It is not easy to fill this vacuum.”

As the mourners continued to wait for hours in the scorching heat outside the Nehru family home and memorial, where Gandhi will lie in state until noon today, units of the Indian army, air force and navy staged a dress rehearsal on the sprawling front lawns of the estate. Gandhi’s coffin will be placed on a gun carriage there at 1 p.m. and begin a 2 1/2-hour procession through the capital.

A last-minute meeting headed by India’s caretaker prime minister, Chandra Shekhar, ended a dispute over the site for Gandhi’s cremation. The government had planned to stage it directly between the funeral shrine of his mother and that of India’s near-saint, Mohandas K. Gandhi, until it learned that the remains of Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri are located there. Another 60-acre site along the nearby Yamuna River was selected instead.

Other emergency meetings were held to organize massive security measures that the government and army plan to implement throughout the city during the procession and cremation--events that helped trigger a wave of violence that left more than 2,000 Sikhs dead in November, 1984, three days after Gandhi’s mother was shot to death by two of her Sikh bodyguards.

Large contingents of heavily armed troops have been patrolling the capital to prevent a repeat of the 1984 carnage. Although New Delhi has been largely peaceful since the assassination, with Gandhi’s supporters unable to focus their anger and grief over his still-unsolved killing, the city remains fearful and authorities are concerned that the funeral could ignite passions that might be turned against foreigners.

Gandhi’s traditionally socialist Congress-I Party has been profoundly suspicious of Westerners, particularly Americans, since his mother popularized the expression “foreign hand” in explaining the roots of virtually any insurgency or act of sabotage in India.

From the moment Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination was announced, bands of his supporters have marched through parts of the capital shouting, “Death to the CIA!” and, on one occasion, beat up Western journalists trying to cover their demonstration. The sentiment was underscored during Thursday’s procession of mourners when several began to shout, “Death to George Bush and America!” and the U.S. Embassy here issued a formal warning to all Americans to stay off the streets of the capital today.

But most analysts said they expected the event to pass peacefully, largely because the popular sentiment for Gandhi--who served five years as prime minister and was fighting an uphill battle to return to power this week--is not as deep or as focused as that felt for his mother. What is more, they said, there has been no organized violence such as the attacks that were engineered by party workers in 1984.

“It’s just not like 1984,” said one Western analyst who has been in New Delhi for many years. “There will be emotion. Certainly there’s grief and anger and shouts for blood. But no one knows just whose blood they’re after yet.”