15 May 2004	Saturday	24 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

NEW DELHI: India's watershed election has finally laid to rest a long-running debate about whether Sonia Gandhi's foreign birth disqualified her from ruling the world's largest democracy as head of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

Voters ignored a sometimes insulting and personal campaign by her opponents against her Italian birth and gave Gandhi a clear mandate on Thursday, throwing out the Hindu nationalist-led coalition that had argued strongly she was unfit to rule.

"Persistent questions about Sonia's foreign antecedents should be silenced once and for all by the huge groundswell of support for her party," the Times of India said, adding that Gandhi was the people's choice for prime minister.

"The clearest message from the voters is that Mrs Gandhi's foreign origin is not - and has not been - an issue," said the Hindustan Times editorial. "There are no doubts that the prime ministership of the country is Mrs Gandhi's for the taking."

Gandhi who replaced her husband, former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, as Congress chief seven years after his assassination in 1991, has from time to time been attacked for her foreign origin.

Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist chief minister of Gujarat state, once called her an "Italian female dog".

Throughout this election, leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance targeted Gandhi's background, saying it was an insult to a country of more than one billion people, and with a history of colonial rule, to be led by someone born overseas.

In its manifesto, the BJP's coalition promised to outlaw anyone of foreign origin running for public office - a move clearly aimed at Gandhi.

Modi and Tamil Nadu state Chief Minister Jayalalitha, who both built their election campaign almost solely on an anti-Gandhi platform, were among the biggest election losers.

Jayalalitha failed to win a single seat and Congress doubled its representation in Gujarat to 12.

"Sonia emerged as the wronged widow offering herself and her children as the champions of the marginalized and oppressed," said the Times of India, referring to her son, Rahul, and her daughter Priyanka, who both campaigned heavily.

Gandhi's Congress, its formal allies and the communists who have pledged their support have together won more than the 272 seats required in India's 545-member parliament to rule.

Congress' new lawmakers are due to meet on Saturday to choose their parliamentary leader, almost certainly Gandhi, which will position her to take up the prime ministership.

By choosing Gandhi, Indians had shown themselves to be liberal and accepting, one commentator said.

"This symbolizes what is somewhat rare in the democratic world, a liberal tradition and tolerance that makes the Indian psyche," wrote H.K. Dua in a commentary in the Tribune newspaper.

Indeed, a common response from villagers across India when Gandhi's foreign origin is raised is typically: "She has married into our family, she is our daughter."-Reuters