Victory for Indira

Ever since last month's general elections in which India's ruling Congress Party suffered startling setbacks, the race has been on for the Prime Minister's job. The contestants: Indira Gandhi, who has held the position since the death of Lai Bahadur Shastri 14 months ago, and Morarji Desai, 71, the flinty former Finance Minister who was also Indira's sole rival in the earlier selection. Last week, bowing to pressures for party unity, Desai withdrew from the race, thus virtually assuring Indira's election this week by the Congress Party to a full five-year term as Prime Minister. As a reward, Desai was promised the portfolios of Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister in Indira's new Cabinet. Said Desai: "We must work to gether as a happy team."

India's problems did not withdraw, though, and Indira has plenty of them. The country faces an acute food short age that has reduced millions of people to near-starvation level. Hindu holy men are agitating for a nationwide ban on cow slaughter. Indian crowds continue to show a growing propensity toward violence and mayhem. The country's economy is stagnant under layers of bureaucratic government control. Be sides all that, Indira will be confronted with an unaccustomed problem: owing to her party's poor performance at the polls, she must not only face a powerful opposition in Parliament, but will also be required to deal with governments in six states, including two of India's most severely drought-stricken, that are ruled by opposition parties.

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