INDIA: By turning down India's premiership against all odds and expectations, Italian-born Sonia Gandhi has not only elevated her political stature, but astutely outmanoeuvred her Hindu nationalist detractors and astounded hesitant allies.
Congress Party insiders said the 57-year-old widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had shrewdly dodged taking up an appointment for which she lacked experience and confidence and one that would have rendered her vulnerable and under constant scrutiny, principally because of her foreign origins.
"By refusing the top job in India's politically venal system which was hers for the asking, Mrs Gandhi has turned a difficult and tricky situation to her political advantage," Pravin Swami of The Hindu newspaper said.
In the action-packed afternoon leading to Ms Gandhi's dramatic announcement, one of her ardent supporters tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to shoot himself standing on top of a car, hoping to "persuade" her to reconsider.
"I do (commit) suicide if Mrs Gandhi does not become the prime minister," Congress activist Ganga Charan Rajput said as he waved a sword at those who tried to disarm him. The incident ran live on television.
Others, including almost all the newly elected 148 Congress MPs, pleaded tearfully with Mrs Gandhi to rescind her pronouncement, each one competing with the other to heap praise on their leader in parliament's Central Hall.
"I have listened to your views, your pain and anguish on the decision I have taken. I am aware that I am causing anguish to you but I think if you trust me, allow me to take my decision," she said stoically.
Some Congress Party MPs said they would rather resign than not be led by Mrs Gandhi, who engineered a surprise rout of outgoing prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist-led government in the recently concluded elections.
"She has acted on her conscience. She is following India's old tradition of janata sewa (service to the country)," Mrs Gandhi's daughter, Priyanka, said.
Her decisions are principled and based on what she feels is right, she added.
The political drama began around noon after Mrs Gandhi told reporters following her meeting with President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam that she had held "preliminary discussions on formation of the government". She said she would meet the head of state again today.
Neither she nor the President's office commented on why Mr Kalam had not named her prime minister, a post for which she had the requisite parliamentary majority and for which she had been unanimously endorsed the evening before.
Soon after, a news website and a local news channel broke the news that Mrs Gandhi was seriously reconsidering her decision to become prime minister, leading to hysterical Congress workers gathering outside her house to persuade her otherwise.
Ironically, this also led to the stock market soaring, up 8.6 per cent a day after the biggest fall in its 129-year history.
Analysts, meanwhile, said that through her actions Mrs Gandhi had "forced" into silence Mr Vajpayee's party, which had threatened to launch a nationwide campaign against her foreign origins.