Early on March 14th a clutch of powerful Indian politicians, including the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, lined up outside the front-door of the most powerful one-Sonia Gandhi. Their task was to congratulate Mrs Gandhi on the tenth anniversary of her accession to the throne of the ruling Congress party, formerly occupied by her assassinated husband, Rajiv, his assassinated mother, Indira, and his grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru. In a formal address to their leader, the politicos assured her of their "deep gratitude".rnAnd well they might. A reluctant politician, like her murdered husband, Mrs Gandhi was persuaded to take charge of the party after a seven-year spell of mourning for him. During that time-its longest without a Gandhi in command since 1947-Congress had been reduced to a dreadful state. The fortunes of its main rival, the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp), had soared. In an election in 1999, Congress's first under Mrs Gandhi, who was then perhaps best known for her Italian birth and bad Hindi, the party won its lowest ever number of seats, 114.
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