"There will be enormous sympathy and respect for Sonia Gandhi's decision" was the editorial comment of the widely-respected national daily "The Hindu".

"Having made her point (by leading Congress to victory in parliamentary elections), the Italian-born Congress President, who could have been Prime Minister by Wednesday, has grown enormously in political and moral stature," it said.

Another leading daily 'The Hindustan Times" said "rare is the Indian politician who turns away from power when it is offered to him or her on a platter. Sonia Gandhi is now the only person in Indian history to have turned down the post of prime minister not just once but twice. The first time she declined the office was in 1991, it was possible to argue that she was in mourning (after her husband Rajiv Gandhi's assassination) and that she was not a political person."

"By stepping aside to make way for another candidate (for the post of prime minister), Sonia has emulated a tradition of renunciation that ironically has long been held to be the pinnacle of Indian civilisational thought," said an editorial in The Times of India newspaper.

"Sonia can now rest assured, though, that her stock will go upas much here as internationally," it said adding "by the same token those in the BJP and the RSS who have spearheaded a hate campaign against her must know that they have come out of this sordid drama looking like street bullies."

"Whichever way you look at Election 2004, it belonged to only one person: Sonia Gandhi," said the daily.

The Indian Express newspaper said "by choosing to humbly decline to take up the prime minister's post, she has played a masterstroke…..it allows her to assume the high moral ground and signal that she was by no means enamoured of power for its own sake but power for the principles she believes in."

"She has thus neatly disarmed her political opponents of the one weapon they had hoped to use against her," the newspaper commented.

"The BJP and those of its allies who supported this petty-mindedthere are some honorable exceptionshave emerged from the affair much diminished," it added.