NEW DELHI, Jan 11: India's main opposition Congress party, worried about upcoming national polls, is debating whether its president Sonia Gandhi should tap daughter Priyanka, the heir of India's top political dynasty.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the great-granddaughter of India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, turned 33 on Sunday, triggering fresh speculation about her political future.

While Congress leaders are officially silent on the issue, party sources say some cadre support Priyanka taking over from her mother, whose Italian birth will be repeatedly raised by the ruling Hindu nationalists in the campaign.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was meeting with leaders of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday in Hyderabad, where they are expected to decide to call early elections to take advantage of economic growth and peace moves with Pakistan.

The 119-year-old Congress party which led India to independence from Britain in 1947 and has ruled the country for most of its independent history is facing a crisis following its longest stint out of power.

The last Congress government to rule India completed its tenure in 1996. The party has just 109 members in 545-seat parliament compared with 180 for the BJP, which rules in a coalition with some 20 parties.

Although it administers 11 of India's 28 states, Congress is finding it difficult to prevent its support base from shrinking and lost three provinces to the BJP in December 1 polls.

A Congress panel convened after the regional election debacle recommended that Sonia Gandhi bring Priyanka into active politics to boost sagging party morale. Political analyst B.G. Verghese said Priyanka was "inclined to join politics."

"She has been campaigning off and on for the party," Verghese said. "It is just a matter of time and election time is as good as any to take the plunge."

He said Priyanka could help the Congress look younger and more dynamic and steer away from charges that its prime ministerial candidate is not a real Indian.

Sonia Gandhi became an Indian citizen in the early 1980s, more than a decade after she married Rajiv Gandhi. The former prime minister and father of Priyanka was assassinated in 1991, allegedly by Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels.

There have been Congress calls in the past to give a greater role to Priyanka, who bears a resemblance to her late grandmother Indira Gandhi, India's only female prime minister.

Priyanka, a psychology graduate from Delhi University and mother of two, actively campaigned for Congress in the 1999 national polls swept by the BJP, addressing rallies in different parts of India and reportedly helping her mother draft speeches.

But Priyanka was missing from the party's campaigns in the runup to the assembly polls last month, which opinion polls had tipped Congress to win.

When asked about her absence, Priyanka told reporters on election day before the results came in that she did not feel the need to campaign as Congress was expected to do well.

BJP general secretary and chief strategist Pramod Mahajan, anticipating Priyanka's formal entry into politics, trained his guns on her Saturday.

"It seems that a few of the Congressmen are not satisfied with the mother's performance," he told reporters in Hyderabad. "They want the mother to be replaced by the daughter."-AFP