Скачать или смотреть INDIA: SONIA GANDHI WITHDRAWS CONGRESS PARTY RESIGNATION

(24 May 1999) English/Nat

Sonia Gandhi has withdrawn her resignation as president of India's Congress Party - ending a leadership crisis in the nation's oldest political group.

Gandhi resigned last week after three top party officials asked her to step down from the prime minister's race.

They said her Italian ancestry was turning into an election issue and that many Indians resented having a foreign-born citizen run for the country's highest elected office.

Gandhi is expected to preside over a meeting of party representatives from across India on Tuesday.

It didn't take long for word of Sonia Gandhi's resignation withdrawal to spread across the Indian capital.

Supporters welcomed the news.

Crackers went off and hundreds of party members hugged one another in jubilation upon receiving word of Gandhi's decision.

The news was announced on Monday at a meeting of the Congress Party's committee.

SOUNDBITE (English)
"The Congress president has agreed to reconsider her decision - in fact she has reconsidered and conveyed to us she is going to preside the A-I-C-C (All India Congress committee) session tomorrow at 11am."
SUPER CAPTION: Pranab Mukherjee, Congress party spokesman

For days after Gandhi's resignation last week, party workers besieged her New Delhi home.

Four chief ministers offered to quit their jobs, party officials considered resigning from their posts and supporters threatened immolation.

The All India Congress Committee was called to convince her to take back her resignation letter.

Gandhi withdrew her resignation after a plea by the working committee.

The three top officials who criticised her were thrown out of the party without discussion of the issues they raised.

Among them was Sharad Pawar, who represented the western state of Maharashtra, home to the financial capital of Bombay.

He and the two other ousted leaders, former house speaker Purno Sangma and lawmaker Tariq Anwar, said they planned to form another party that would focus on issues such as women's empowerment and reduction of poverty.

Sonia Gandhi married into the Nehru-Gandhi family, India's main political dynasty that produced three prime ministers.

Her husband, Rajiv, was killed when a Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger guerrilla detonated explosives strapped to her body.

Her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, was gunned down in 1984 in her prime ministerial residence.

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