Gandhi bounces back with two wins

Press, 25 January 1989, Page 10

Gandhi bounces back with two wins

NZPA-Reuter New Delhi The Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, whose Congress (I) Party was humiliated in a state assembly election in southern India on Monday, bounced back yesterday with convincing wins in two north-eastern states. In Nagaland, on the Burmese border, Congress had won 31 of the 52 seats declared with seven more results due. In nearby Mizoram, the national ruling party had captured 22 of the 39 seats declared with only one more result due.

Santosh Mohan Dev, the campaign manager tor Congress in both states, portrayed the

victories as a personal triumph for Mr Gandhi. “Gandhi’s liberal, Westernised image was an important factor. He has proved to be an important vote-catcher here if nowhere else,” he said. However welcome for Mr Gandhi and Congress, victories in the two small border states — both militarily sensitive but politically insignificant — could not compensate for Monday’s debacle in Tamil Nadu, where Congress trailed behind two regional parties. In spite of an enthusiastic personal campaign by Mr Gandhi, final results there gave

the Tamil-dominated Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam 148 seats, another local group, the Aiadmk, 27, and Congress 26. The defeat, far greater than even Mr Gandhi’s most candid critics had foreseen, almost certainly means India’s General Election, which must be held by December, will be put off until the last moment. If also restores the entire south of India to opposition control and might confront Mr Gandhi with a leadership of India’s 50 million Tamils opposed to his policy towards the Tamil problem in neighbouring Sri Lanka.