THE TELEGRAPHLONDONI finally met Sonia Gandhi on a flight back to New Delhi after a campaign rally in Lucknow.The start was inauspicious. Giving me a startled look and tucking her brown wool shawl protectively around her, she murmured: ``I didn't think this was going to be an interview.''The Italian-born widow of Rajiv Gandhi has never been touted as a female Asian leader of the stature of Benazir Bhutto, or Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma. However, this is still an unexpected reaction for any politician, not to mention a candidate for Prime Minister whose husband and mother-in-law, Indira, both once held the job.As I tried to draw out her reasons for entering politics, her fears and her beliefs, the problem that Congress is facing with its party president and star campaigner became apparent. Sonia is a very appealing housewife and mother - but she is not a politician.Congress has been trying to portray Sonia Gandhi - once likened by an Indian magazine to the Mona Lisa - as aresolute leader, firmly in charge of the 113-year-old party. But privately they are dismayed.``Look at her body language, she's so stiff,'' said a Congress official, throwing up his hands. ``After all, she's a politician now and we want her to be more accessible, but her security won't let her.''Sonia acknowledges there is a credibility problem. She told me her own sister never believed her insistence that she was Indian. She said: ``She used to ring me up and argue with me. It was only after Rajiv died that she finally understood me.''-JULIAN WEST
