NEW DELHI India AP Recent provincial election results have inspired new hope among members of the 112-year-old Congress party and trumpeted the arrival of Sonia Gandhi on India's political landscape party officials and analysts said. After years of waning influence and dwindling votes India's main opposition party pulverized the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in crucial provincial elections in three states last week. The BJP lost power in New Delhi state where the federal capital is located and the western desert state of Rajasthan two longtime BJP strongholds and retained power in the central Madhya Pradesh state despite projections of a BJP victory. Congress leaders said it was a clear victory for Sonia Gandhi the Italian-born widow of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who is seen by her admirers as India's prime minister-in-waiting. ``She has certainly made a good start considering the doubts there were earlier'' said B. G. Verghese of New Delhi's independent Center for Policy Research. ``She has matured she is a much more confident leader ... with greater acceptability within the party and greater credibility outside.'' Though the state balloting had no direct effect on the BJP's hold on federal power the results will weaken its standing and its hold over its 19 coalition partners. Gandhi though has said she would not make an immediate bid for power by pressing for a parliamentary confidence vote. Gandhi who married into what was once India's most powerful political family is the first non-Indian since independence 50 years ago to lead the Congress. The party was founded in 1885 by a British man. Between her late husband his mother Indira Gandhi and her father Jawaharlal Nehru the dynasty led India for nearly four decades of its 50 years since independence. The BJP had shrugged off the influence of the 51-year-old Sonia Gandhi when she stepped into politics early this year dismissing her as a ``foreigner.'' Sonia Gandhi is now an Indian citizen. ``It's wrong to say she is formidable'' said K.R. Malkani a BJP vice-president told The Associated Press. He said the BJP lost because of its own weaknesses not Congress's strengths. ``The way the government failed to control prices the way infighting went on in the party I think that's more responsible for the defeat'' he said. Thousands of voters heard Sonia Gandhi campaign last month and during the federal election earlier this year. She slowly read speeches in Hindi India's national language written in Roman script. She wears a traditional Indian sari draping the end over the head as tradition-minded women do to show respect for their elders. During the campaign she targeted rises in the price of several food grains and vegetables and the BJP's attempt to inject its Hindu nationalist thought into the country's education system. APW19981201.0347.txt.body.html APW19981201.0395.txt.body.html