Sonia's 'foreign origin' resurfaces yet again

Here comes the election time and the issue of India's top opposition leader Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin seems to resurface.

Elections to legislatures in four key states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Chattisgarh are due later this year. Beyond that are, of course, fresh parliamentary polls slated next year.

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This time around, Italian-born Sonia's foreign origin has reopened earlier this month when she declared her Congress Party is ready for alliances or coalition arrangements with like-minded secular parties to take on ruling BJP-led alliance in next parliamentary elections.

At a brainstorming of senior Congress leaders in the hill resort of Shimla from July 8 to 10, Congress made it clear Sonia would be the leader of any non-BJP combination, thereby positioning her as the prime ministerial candidate.

Sonia's Shimla appeal to secular forces to come together to defeat BJP has already set off churning in opposition parties. The Left parties CPI (M) and CPI, which oppose Congress in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, have ruled out pre-polls alliance with Congress and have termed as "irrelevant" the issue of Sonia's foreign origin.

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) headed by former Congressman Sharad Pawar, is once again grappling with the issue of Sonia's foreign origin. The party was born in 1998 as a breakaway group of Congress after the likes of Pawar, Tariq Anwar and former Parliament Speaker P A Sangma questioned Sonia's credentials as a prime ministerial candidate.

But that has not prevented NCP in joining hands with Congress and form a coalition government in western state of Maharashtra four years ago and fresh polls to the state legislature are due next year.

But NCP now seems divided on the issue of Sonia's foreign origin. Soon after Congress' emphatic readiness to enter into alliances as announced in Shimla, NCP spokesman Vasant Chavan had said in Mumbai that his party is willing to reconsider its stand on the foreign origin issue.

Pawar, however, sang a totally different tune just four days back. At a press conference in Mumbai, he said parties willing to participate in a non-BJP national alliance would have to collectively decide on alliance leadership question and no one party can unilaterally announce the leader of such a combination.