Lagarde's charm fails to win India backing in IMF pitch

French finance minister Christine Lagarde met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday as part of her efforts to drum up support for her candidacy for the top job at International Monetary Fund (IMF), but failed to secure public support from India.

French finance minister Christine Lagarde met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday as part of her efforts to drum up support for her candidacy for the top job at International Monetary Fund (IMF), but failed to secure public support from India.

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"There is no assurance. We are working on a consensus," Mukherjee said after meeting Lagarde. But she described her meetings with Indian officials as "excellent."

"We had an excellent meeting and we were able to review quite a few issues concerning the current status of the Indian economy as well as my own perspective to the candidacy for the post of managing director of the IMF," she told reporters.

Lagarde, 55, is a former lawyer and has been France's finance minister since 2007.

She was in Brazil last week, the first stop of an international campaign after Dominique Strauss-Kahn quit on charges of sexually assaulting a New York hotel housekeeper.

The only other candidate is Mexico's central bank chief Agustin Carstens, who will be visiting India later this week.

But with 35% of IMF votes, a united Europe will be a formidable block.