Ms Sonia Gandhi has secured the support of election allies for the post of prime minister, according to the general secretary of her party.
India's Italian-born leader of the Congress party defied predictions during the country's three-week general election to rout outgoing Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
She held talks today with smaller left-wing parties who have indicated they will support her nomination for prime minister, so putting another member of the Ghandi dynasty on the brink of securing leadership in India.
"There is a consensus on it. The allies have been saying it. They have been saying, 'you elect your leader and we will support it'," Mr Oscar Fernandes, Congress general secretary, told reporters.
The world's largest democracy has been stunned by the size of the poll upset, which analysts says was inspired by the disaffected rural poor who have not seen the benefits of India's economic boom.
But Ms Gandhi is a political novice having formally replaced her husband, former prime minister Rajiv, as Congress chief seven years after his 1991 assassination.
Written off by opinion polls just three weeks ago, Congress fared far better than expected and will be the largest party in the new 545-seat parliament. But Ms Gandhi's coalition, with fewer than 220 seats, needs new partners.
She now faces the delicate task of stitching up an alliance with leftist parties, who hold a critical bloc of 60-plus seats but oppose the style of economic reforms introduced by the BJP to open the economy.
The leading left-wing party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM), won 33 seats, more than half the leftist total, and its support will be critical to Ms Gandhi's survival.