With the ruling Hindu nationalists struggling to keep coalition allies in line, Sonia Gandhi has returned to centre stage as leader of the opposition.
All eyes are on the 51-year-old Italian-born Ms Gandhi, widow of former premier Rajiv Gandhi. She holds the key to the survival of the 100-day-old, multi-party ruling coalition.
Ms Gandhi's Congress (I) Party, the largest force in Parliament after the nationalists, is under growing pressure from other opposition groups to bring down the fragile nationalist-led minority alliance.
'She is occupying a very important position in the country today,' said political analyst G. V. L. Narasimha Rao. 'Her acceptability as prime minister is certainly high today.' One opposition leader said: 'She is proving more shrewd that we thought. She is quiet but effective. She has brought things to a point where everyone is clamouring for her.' Things seemed different when she took up politics in January, just two months before national elections in which the Congress was widely expected to be decimated.
But while the 113-year-old party fared poorly, it proved its worst critics wrong, mainly thanks to a strenuous campaign by the mother-of-two.
Since then Ms Gandhi, no longer a mere figurehead, has shed much of her aloofness and political immaturity. She has toured India in a bid to rebuild Congress.
