RULING PARTIES PICK INDIAN PREMIER.

Byline: Ranjan Roy Associated Press 

India's fractious governing coalition ended weeks of paralyzing uncertainty Saturday, choosing the foreign minister to replace Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, who was ousted last month in a no-confidence vote.

Inder Kumar Gujral would be India's third premier since elections last year left no party with a clear parliamentary majority. The parliament has been a stage for constant jockeying that did not end with Gujral's selection.

An hour afterward, a party whose leader, G.K. Moopanar, was one of several candidates for prime minister announced that it will withdraw from the coalition, leaving it more vulnerable.

The decision by the Tamil Manila Congress would mean that Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, a member of the party who was widely seen as a promoter of free market reforms, will not be in the new Cabinet.

Gowda announced the selection of Gujral after a late-night meeting of leaders of the United Front coalition.

``I promise to serve with all my capacity . . . to give a government that attends to the basic problems of India - poverty, backwardness and also social justice,'' Gujral told reporters.

President Shankar Dayal Sharma would be approached today to endorse Gujral as prime minister, coalition leader Chandrababu Naidu said.

Gujral, 77, long had been considered a front-runner for prime minister because of his popularity among a range of parties. He is a member of the Janata Dal, a leftist party that is the main bloc in United Front, and was once a member of the powerful Congress Party.

The United Front was forced to find a new chief when Congress withdrew its support from Gowda, blaming him for rising prices and unemployment. But Congress promised to back the United Front once the coalition settled on a new leader. Gowda lost a vote of confidence April 11.

Congress had lent support to the Front, without formally joining the coalition, because both want to keep out their common foe, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

In recent days, the leaders of several parties in the coalition had laid claim to the prime minister's post in a power struggle that some feared would destroy the Front.

The dispute also threatened to destroy earlier consensus on budget proposals that business leaders praised as investor-friendly.

President Sharma had told leaders to end the political uncertainty before Parliament reconvenes Monday to consider the budget.

If the United Front members had failed to agree on a new leader, Sharma could have called on the largest political group in the Parliament, the Bharatiya Janata Party, to try to find enough partners to form a government, or dissolve parliament and order new elections.

Neither the United Front nor the Congress Party wants snap elections because opinion surveys show a vote would benefit the Hindu nationalist party, known as the BJP.

The United Front has only 178 lawmakers in the 545-member lower house, or Lok Sabha. Congress has 140 lawmakers and the BJP and its allies control 193. The rest are independents.

A 272-member coalition would gain control because two parliament seats are open.

The BJP, which was asked to form a government after last year's elections, failed to establish a clear majority in the Parliament, and its administration lasted for about two weeks. The United Front took over later.