INDIA: Indira Is Back

She wins a bitter by-election

The lush, hilly, coffee-and rice-growing district is known as Chikmagalur, "the abode of the little daughter," in the local Kannada dialect. This Indian constituency, some 1,000 miles south of New Delhi, has now become a political shelter for "Behnji" (Honored Sister)—a favorite nickname of the formidable Indira Gandhi. In a bitter by-election, the former Prime Minister last week defeated a lackluster candidate of the country's ruling Janata coalition to win a seat in India's Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament), where she has not been seen since her Congress Party was...

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