Congress plays dynasty card and pins its hopes on Rajiv's widow

Sonia Gandhi yesterday went to the spot where her husband, Rajiv, was assassinated seven years ago, to launch her election campaign on behalf of Congress. Peter Popham in Sriperumbudur sees the start of her attempt to bring the party back from the brink.

Yesterday Mrs Gandhi and her daughter, Priyanka, got into a bullet- proof Hindustan Ambassador in Madras and were driven to Sriperumbudur, 40 km inland, where Rajiv was murdered by a terrorist bomb.

There, before thousands of party supporters and 50-foot cut-outs of herself and other Congress luminaries, Mrs Gandhi for the first time threw her weight unequivocally behind the party with which her family is so closely identified.

Mrs Gandhi has never fought a political campaign before and has hardly ever delivered a political speech: she clearly felt she ought to explain herself. "In the years since Rajiv was killed," she said, "I have chosen to live as a private citizen. My grief and loss have been private. But the time has come to put aside my own inclinations and step forward."

She was born and raised in Italy but insisted yesterday that her loyalty was undivided."I became part of India 30 years ago when I entered Indira Gandhi's household as her eldest son's bride ... My devotion to our country is ... absolute. It is this devotion that brings me before you today, not to seek office but to share my concern for this country's future." Mrs Gandhi's decision to campaign has galvanised the election, to be held at the end of next month, but no one knows what it means. Congress has been growing weaker by the year and it is effectively leaderless. Under the presidency of the foxy, charmless 82-year-old Sitaram Kesri it has been losing leaders to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the populist Hindu party which had until recently been treated as a parliamentary leper.

The BJP has also cobbled together enough alliances to look for the first time as if it might attain power as leader of a stable coalition. Then Mrs Gandhi gave in to the Congress people who had been pleading with her to help, and all bets were off.

The idea that she can make such a big difference to an Indian election and could even become the next prime minister takes a little getting used to. She never had any interest in politics and in this resembles the young Indian she fell in love with when she was studying English as a foreign language in Cambridge. But after Rajiv's brother Sanjay, the political heir-apparent, died in a plane crash, Rajiv was sucked into politics. And now at last the same has happened to his widow.

One theory as to why she has let it happen is that the provincial, stolidly middle-class Mrs Gandhi had nowhere else to go: she had no alternative to embracing her Indian destiny. Priyanka is said to be politically ambitious and may have exerted pressure.

Then there is the lingering threat of litigation over the Bofors arms bribery scandal of 10 years ago, in which Rajiv and Mrs Gandhi were allegedly implicated, and concerning which much still remains hazy. As long as Congress continues to wield some power, and she is a power within it, that threat can perhaps be kept at bay. Were Congress to roll over and die, however, Mrs Gandhi might lose all control over events.

Yesterday she drove the road Rajiv had taken nearly seven years ago, the road that led to his death. Madras's straggling fringe gives way to rice fields, palm trees, far green tropical horizons, the occasional factory. At Sriperumbudur mother and daughter paid their respects at the shrine to Rajiv, then drove on to the local school where some 10,000 supporters waited.

Most were women from surrounding villages brought in by lorry. Mrs Gandhi spoke in clear, ringing English for nearly half an hour, and was received with slightly mechanical enthusiasm. Priyanka said only three words, "Vote for Congress", but they were in Tamil and she was cheered. Congress has now played the dynasty card. It remains to be seen whether it is an ace or a joker.