The ever-powerful Congress Party brought down India's 7-month-old government Friday, withdrawing its support from the ruling coalition after it refused to repudiate an ally linked to a 1991 assassination.
The government led by Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral was India's third to collapse in less than two years.Its failure ended a week of political intrigue but raised more questions: Can Congress or any other party form a new government? Are elections next? Is political stability out of reach for the world's largest democracy?
The Congress Party was angered by the 14-party ruling coalition's refusal to drop the Dravida Progressive Front, a ethnic Tamil party in southern India.
Parliament last week received a government report alleging that Dravida was a longtime supporter of Sri Lanka's Tamil rebels, who are believed responsible for the suicide bombing that killed Rajiv Gandhi, a Congress leader and former prime minister.
The United Front called the allegations unfair.
Gujral resigned soon after losing Congress's support Friday. Though the party was not a member of the Cabinet, Gujral's government had relied on its support in votes of confidence in Parliament.
President K.R. Narayanan accepted Gujral's resignation and asked him to continue as a caretaker until alternative arrangements were made, the president's office.
India has suffered a series of indecisive, unstable minority or coalition governments since May 1996 elections ousted the Congress Party, which had governed India for 45 of the 50 years since independence.
The vote left no party with an outright majority in the 545-member lower house of Parliament.
A Hindu nationalist party, Bharatiya Janata, won the most seats - 162 - and its leader was sworn in as prime minister. The government collapsed within days, however, when it lost a parliamentary vote of confidence.
United Front leader H.D. Deve Gowda then became prime minister with the support of the Congress Party. He was forced out last March when Congress deemed him ineffective and pulled its support. He was replaced by Gujral.
After Congress withdrew its support from the latest government Friday, Congress chief Sitaram Kesri staked his claim to form the next government himself.
"We are sure, given a chance, we would be able to prove our majority on the floor of the house," Kesri said in a letter to President K. R. Narayanan, India's constitutional head of state.
The reason for Kesri's confidence was far from clear. His party has just 138 seats and needs partners to govern: The most likely candidates, members of the United Front, said they would not support him.