Political turmoil ends as Singh named Indian PM

MANMOHAN Singh, the architect of India's economic reforms and a respected consensus builder, was named prime minister yesterday, ending weeks of political turmoil that culminated with Sonia Gandhi's refusal to take the post.

Mr Singh and Congress party leader Mrs Gandhi met last night with President APJ Abdul Kalam, who approved Mr Singh's bid to form a minority government.

"I am happy to inform the nation the president has invited me to form the next government," Mr Singh told reporters after emerging from Mr Kalam's ornate, colonial-era palace. Mrs Gandhi was by his side and they appeared at ease, laughing when reporters shouted questions at them.

The Congress Party had elected Mr Singh its leader earlier yesterday after Mrs Gandhi refused to back down from her decision not to become India's leader.

A senior Congress leader said on condition of anonymity that Mr Singh would be sworn in today or Saturday. Friday, he said, was an auspicious date on the Hindu calendar, but also the 13th anniversary of the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, who was killed by Sri Lanka separatists, leaving Sonia Gandhi a widow.

Congress had been thrown into turmoil by Mrs Gandhi's surprise decision to stand down at a time when it should be basking in the glory of its shock election victory last week.

Congress workers nationwide held sit-ins and marched in the streets. They burned effigies of the Hindu nationalist leaders of the outgoing government, and in some cases burned tyres in the roads to block traffic.

"We feel very let down. All the work I did in the past two months has been wasted," said Abdul Ghani Khan, a Congress leader in the northern state of Jammu-Kashmir." Violence erupted soon after the news that Mrs Gandhi and senior aides had swung their support behind Mr Singh.

Outraged party workers broke into Congress' headquarters, next to Mrs Gandhi's house in the capital, knocking down doors and smashing windows and demanding she change her mind.

Mr Singh is a veteran of Indian politics. The Oxford-educated economist was the architect of India's free-market reforms of the early 1990s. His admirers credit him with helping to save the socialist-style economy from near collapse.