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India's Rao faces

tough battle in

southern states

HYDERABAD: India's ruling Congress party, passing through turmoil in the populous north, is struggling to keep its hold in its traditional southern bastion, politicians and analysts said on Thursday.

They said Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao's plans for a relatively easy consolidation of his power base in the states of Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh had been upset by a brewing Congress revolt and controversial alliances.

Accusations by a former minister turned rival in Rao's cabinet that a son of the premier was involved in a sugar import scandal appeared to have aided the opposition in an otherwise dull campaign in his home state of Andhra Pradesh.

"Out of 42 seats (in Andhra Pradesh) we are going to win 35," state Chief Minister Chandra Babu Naidu told a news conference on Thursday.

Naidu heads a breakaway group of the Telegu Desam Party founded by his father-in-law, the late N.T. Rama Rao.

"The prime minister's son, P.V. Prabhakar Rao, is involved in a 6,480 million rupee ($190 million) sugar scandal," Naidu said. "The prime minister is involved in the hawala scandal. The Congress is licking the country's economy dry."

India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has accused Rao of being involved in a $18 million bribes-for-favours scandal. Rao and his Congress party have denied the charges.

Seven ministers of Rao's cabinet have resigned after being indicted by federal police in the scandal.

On Wednesday, several Congress activists attacked the naming of another of Rao's sons as a candidate for the general elections in the state capital.

Rao handsomely won a by-election in November 1991 in Nandyal, a backward town in Andhra Pradesh. He was supported by then state opposition leader Rama Rao as a "fellow Andhraite".

But Rama Rao's Telugu Desam Party was split by the prime minister, who gained a wafer-thin majority in the Lok Sabha (lower house of the parliament) in 1992 with the help of the defectors.

The Congress performance in the south was helped by the 1991 assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi during an election rally.

The party capitalised on the wave of sympathy. It had won only three of the 17 seats in Andhra Pradesh decided before Gandhi's death. Of the remaining 24 constituencies that went to the polls weeks after his death, it won 21 seats.

"There is neither sympathy for Congress, nor is there any goodwill for its candidates this time," said Lakshmi Parvathi, Rama Rao's widow.

Congress politicians are confident of a good run in the south. But they may be ignoring a poll by the Centre for Media Studies which said Congress would win only 55 to 65 of the 130 parliamentary seats in the four southern states.

Most other seats in the 545-member Lok Sabha are filled by the northern states where Congress has a shaky base, analysts said.

Rao's second candidature from a "safe seat" in the eastern state of Orissa was an indication he is nervous about his chances in Nandyal, they said.

In the neighbouring state of Karnataka, ruled by the Janata Dal party, Rao has met with serious Congress resistance to an alliance with a lower-caste party led by former chief minister S. Bangarappa.

Rao's party, which rules the state of Kerala, faces a struggle against a better organised communist-led Left Front.

In Tamil Nadu, from where two ministers have resigned in protest against Rao's alliance with a regional ruling party, Congress was expected to lose up to 15 seats because of the split, the Centre for Media Studies poll said.-Reuter