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India faces unsettled

politics on eve of polls

NEW DELHI: India was headed towards an era of uncertain politics with general elections almost sure to yield a split parliament and Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao's fortunes on the wane, analysts said on Sunday.

Two weeks before voting begins, forecasters predicted the worst showing by the Congress party, which has ruled India for all but four years since independence, in at least two decades.

The elections will be the first without a member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty which has dominated Congress and national politics for half a century.

Rao, who admits he lacks the charisma of former prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi, has been undercut by defections among party leaders.

Opinion surveys underscore a weakening of support for Rao's Congress and point to a hung parliament split largely between Congress, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the National Front-Left Front, an alliance of leftwing parties.

"Yes, it's going to be a troublesome situation," said analyst Pran Chopra of the independent Centre for Policy Research. "The arithmetic could be very unstable."

Voting begins on April 27 and will be spread over six days ending on May 30. The counting of ballots in all but six of 543 constituencies up for grabs in the 545-seat lower house (Lok Sabha) begins on May 8. A clear picture is expected by May 10.

Congress swept to power in 1991, helped by a wave of sympathy unleashed by the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, who was killed by a woman suicide bomber while campaigning.

Surveys indicated a sharp drop in support for Congress, which won 232 seats in 1991 and afterwards cobbled together an absolute majority with the help of splinter groups.

Congress has been hit by a string of eleventh-hour defections which followed a rebellion last year by disgruntled members who formed an official breakaway group.

Former human resource development minister Madhavrao Scindia, who resigned in January after being linked to an $18 million bribery scandal, recently broke with Congress to run as an independent and has offered to campaign against Rao.

Congress's leaders in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, a pillar of support in 1991, jumped ship this month after Rao renewed an electoral alliance with the state's ruling party.

Analysts said Rao's chances of building a coalition, considered the most likely scenario only weeks ago, had faded.

"Until the other day it appeared Congress could form the next government. Now it is a little bit doubtful," Chopra said.

"There's no certainty Rao will be the next prime minister," a diplomat said.

Polling expert G.V.L. Narasimha Rao told The Asian Age newspaper that he thought the BJP would emerge on top with 166-181 seats, followed by Congress with 155-166 and the leftwing National Front-Left Front with 133-153.

Chopra said Congress could end up in third position, dashing Rao's hopes of remaining prime minister.

Because the BJP could have trouble attracting partners, the socialist Janata Dal and leftwing allies might stake a claim as they did in 1989 when V.P. Singh became prime minister.

"Maybe this coalition will not last long," Singh, whose government lasted 11 months, told The Hindu newspaper.

Partha Chatterjee, a political science professor at the Calcutta-based Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, said the main worry was that no new system would replace Congress's dominance, long the sinew binding Indian politics.

"The prospect of hung parliaments and unstable coalition governments conjures up a scenario of fragmentation and chaos," he said.

But analysts and stock brokers, unfazed by the prospect of a coalition government, said Congress's main foreign policy and economic planks would likely survive.

"The saving grace is that between Congress and the others there is not a great deal of disagreement over the issues," Chopra said. "It is instability of personalities, not issues."-Reuter