SONIA Gandhi, the president of India’s ruling Congress party, has travelled to the US for a ‘checkup’ six months after undergoing surgery for an undisclosed condition, a spokesman said on Tuesday (February 28).‘The checking is just a routine follow-up after her treatment in the US last August. She will be back in Delhi in four or five days,’ Congress party spokesman Janardhan Dwivedi told reporters.
The Congress party has never disclosed 65-year-old Gandhi’s condition. Some media reports said she had received treatment at New York’s Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.During her absence last year, she devolved part of her responsibilities to her son, Rahul, increasing speculation that he may soon take over from his mother as party leader and, eventually, take over as prime minister from Dr Manmohan Singh.
Italian-born Sonia Gandhi stayed out of the political limelight for several months after her surgery last August, a time when her party was grappling with corruption scandals and an ill-fated attempt to implement landmark reforms in India`s retail sector.
