India Names Foreign Minister to Be Premier

India’s fractious governing coalition ended weeks of paralyzing uncertainty Saturday, choosing the foreign minister to replace Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, who was ousted April 11 in a no-confidence vote.

Inder Kumar Gujral would be the third premier India has had since elections last year left no party with a clear parliamentary majority. Gujral’s selection did not end the jockeying in Parliament.

An hour afterward, a party whose leader, G.K. Moopanar, was one of several candidates for prime minister, announced that it will withdraw from the coalition, leaving it more vulnerable.

Gowda announced Gujral’s selection after a meeting of leaders of the United Front coalition.

“I promise to serve with all my capacity . . . to give a government that attends to the basic problems of India--poverty, backwardness and also social justice,” Gujral said.

Gujral, 77, had long been considered a front-runner because of his popularity among a range of parties. He is a member of the Janata Dal, a leftist party that is the main bloc in the United Front, and was once a member of the powerful Congress (I) Party.

The coalition was forced to find a new chief when the Congress Party withdrew its support for Gowda, blaming him for rising prices and unemployment. But the party said it would back the United Front once the coalition settled on a new leader.

Neither the coalition nor the Congress Party wants midterm elections because opinion surveys show a vote would benefit the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.