Indian voters have paved the way for Sonia Gandhi to become their nation's first foreign-born leader.

　　The ruling Hindu nationalist party yesterday conceded defeat in the national elections.

　　The dramatic upset seems certain to restore the Gandhi family's dynasty to power in India.

　　"Over the next few days, the process of government formation will gather momentum," Gandhi told a raucous news conference in which reporters shouted questions, eager to get comment from the elusive opposition leader who rarely speaks to the press.

　　"We will take the lead and ensure our country has a strong, stable and secular government."

　　Gandhi, who spoke in English and Hindi, shied away from saying whether she would become the next prime minister, offering only that it would be up to alliance leaders and the decision would be made tomorrow.

　　The election results indicate that millions of rural poor people abandoned Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, believing they had been left out of his economic boom and rejecting his Hindus-first message in favor of the secularism of Gandhi's Congress Party.

　　Vajpayee, who resigned yesterday, had campaigned on the slogan "India Shining," which focused on the country's 8 percent growth, rapid development and a surge in high-tech industries.

　　But his decision to call the election six months early was a bad mistake.

　　After nearly 12 hours of vote-counting for 539 of Parliament's 543 elected seats, Congress and its allies led Vajpayee's 11-member National Democratic Alliance 198 to 147 seats.

　　Communist and other leftist parties have said they would back Congress, and they had gained 48 seats.

　　"We have not got the mandate of the people," said Venkaiah Naidu, president of Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party.

　　Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha lost his seat, while hawkish Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani retained his.

　　The Congress Party and its allies claimed victory.

　　Italian-born and now an Indian citizen, Sonia Gandhi, 57, could become the fourth member of the Nehru-Gandhi family to lead India if her party and allies choose her as prime minister.

　　Gandhi now faces the same challenge she did in 1999, when she failed to take over the government because of disagreement on whether she should be prime minister.

　　Among her potential allies on the left are senior politicians with much more experience; without their support she won't have a majority in Parliament, according to the incomplete tally.

　　The Congress Party will take a day or two to stake its claim, spokeswoman Ambika Soni said.

　　Gandhi is the widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who was assassinated by a suicide bomber in 1991.

　　Her mother-in-law, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was shot by her body guards in 1984.

　　Indira's father, Jawaharlal Nehru, led India from independence from Britain in 1947 until his 1964 death.

　　Adding to the sweetness of her victory, Sonia's 34-year-old son, Rahul, was elected to Parliament in the latest poll.

　　Before the five-phased elections, which began on April 20, Vajpayee and his National Democratic Alliance had been expected to win enough seats to form a government and rule the country for another five years.

　　Vajpayee also campaigned on his diplomacy, which raised hopes of a lasting peace with Pakistan.

　　Congress Party had focused its attention on the country's 300 million people who still live on less than a dollar a day.

　　It hammered away at the lack of even basic infrastructure, electricity and potable water for the rural poor.

　　"The BJP raised the slogan of development, but the people found there was no real development on the ground," said Kuldip Nayar, a political columnist and a member of the upper house of Parliament.

　　"This is a verdict against globalization. Now the next government will have to think how to employ more hands than machines," the columist added.

　　(The Associated Press)