Gandhi Quits as Leader of Congress Party

Sonia Gandhi, the enigmatic heir to India’s grandest political dynasty, quit Monday as the leader of the Congress Party amid a controversy over her Italian birth.

Gandhi, the widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, tendered her resignation even as the Congress Party was preparing to offer her as its candidate for prime minister in elections later this year.

Her decision--if she sticks to it--promises to further degrade the fortunes of the Congress Party, whose 50-year dominance of Indian politics has been corroded by pettiness and scandal.

Gandhi, 52, resigned following weeks of acrimony over the question of her foreign birth, which her opponents said made her unfit to lead this nation of 990 million people. The final act began Sunday when three rebel Congress members called for a constitutional amendment requiring that future prime ministers be native-born.

“Though born in a foreign land, I chose India as my country,” Gandhi said in her resignation letter. “I am Indian and I will remain so till my last breath. India is my motherland, dearer to me than my own life.”

Gandhi’s supporters held out hope late Monday that she might be persuaded to change her mind. As crowds shouted slogans outside her New Delhi home, Congress Party leaders inside worked into the night to get her to stay on.

“Sonia Gandhi is more Indian than all these people who are calling her a foreigner,” said Shobha Oza, who was among a group of young Congress volunteers staging a hunger strike outside the Gandhi residence. “She is our leader.”

Sonia Gandhi, whose foray into politics lasted a mere 13 months, is the unlikely scion of the dominant family in Indian politics. Born Sonia Maino in Orbassano, Italy, she married Rajiv Gandhi, whom she had met while studying at Cambridge University in England, in 1968. At the time, Rajiv’s mother, Indira Gandhi, was prime minister of India. Rajiv’s grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, helped lead the country’s drive for independence and was its first prime minister.

Sonia Gandhi became an Indian citizen in 1983, and the couple bore two children. After his mother’s assassination in 1984, Rajiv became prime minister. When a suicide bomber killed Rajiv in 1991, Sonia Gandhi retreated from public life.

She returned in April 1998. After the defeat of the Congress Party in national elections, party leaders pleaded with Gandhi to step forth and rescue their demoralized group from complete disintegration. Playing the reluctant politician, she became the Congress president, remade its upper echelons and rekindled the family magic. So shrewd were her tactics--and so unpredictable her ways--that she became known as the “Italian Sphinx.” By year’s end, opinion polls showed her trumping Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in national elections.

Last month, when Vajpayee’s coalition government collapsed, Gandhi stepped forward to form a new government and failed. Many of her own allies criticized her attempt as clumsy--and driven by a suddenly obvious desire to run the country.

“Gandhi revitalized the Congress Party, she saved it from collapse,” said Amitabh Matoo, a professor of politics in New Delhi. “Her one mistake was in trying to form a government. She was playing it so cool and so well, and suddenly she seemed to be in a hurry.”

It was then that her enemies pounced. When new elections were scheduled for later this year, Gandhi’s Italian birth quickly became a campaign issue. “Home rule, not Rome rule,” went the jibe.

Tavleen Singh, one of India’s most influential columnists, wrote recently that the prospect of an Italian-born prime minister was embarrassing to many Indians.

“It is amazing how many people say they are deeply ashamed that a country of a billion people cannot find a single Indian to run it,” Singh wrote.

Gandhi’s friends and supporters say her 31 years in India have made her thoroughly Indian. Like many women here, they point out, she often covers her hair in public, and she no longer serves pasta in her home unless by request. “Bring Sonia back!” a crowd chanted outside her house Monday night. “Only she can save the country!”

Amitabh Sharma of The Times’ New Delhi Bureau contributed to this report.