Sonia Gandhi recovering from surgery
2011-08-05 11:01
New Delhi - The leader of India's ruling party, Sonia Gandhi, was recovering on Friday after undergoing "successful" surgery for an undisclosed medical condition in the United States, a spokesperson said.
"The surgery is over," Congress Party spokesperson Janardhan Dwivedi said, adding that the "surgeon had indicated that the operation was successful".
The 64-year-old Gandhi, widely seen as India's most powerful politician, was recovering in an intensive care unit. The name and location of the hospital has not been released.
"As this is a personal matter that pertains to her health and medical treatment, her family requests that her privacy be respected," Dwivedi said.
India's Tehelka news magazine said on microblogging site Twitter that Gandhi was admitted on Thursday to New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre, the world's largest private cancer centre according to the hospital website.
The Congress Party broke the surprise news of Gandhi's impending surgery on Thursday morning and has since blocked all queries regarding the nature of her illness.
Temporary replacements
The Italian-born Gandhi is the widow of assassinated former premier Rajiv Gandhi and wields enormous influence from her key power-broking position as Congress Party president.
In her absence, she appointed a four-member group to handle the day-to-day running of the Congress Party - including her son Rahul Gandhi, who is tipped as a future prime minister.
In January 2009, current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh underwent heart bypass surgery at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in the capital New Delhi.
The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has ruled India for most of its post-independence history, with three members of the family becoming prime minister.
Sonia Gandhi holds total sway within the Congress and is credited with crafting the strategies that gave the party back-to-back general election victories in 2004 and 2009.
An expected absence of two to three weeks, means she will miss a crucial session of parliament for the scandal-plagued government which intends to introduce draft laws on a range of key areas, including corruption, land acquisition and food security.
Reluctant politician
Gandhi's no-show for the opening of the new session on Monday was noted in the Indian media but explained by an apparent "viral infection".
The mother of two arrived in India as the shy bride of Rajiv Gandhi in her early 20s, and was transformed into a sari-clad Indian who now speaks fluent Hindi.
Her years in the Gandhi household, when her autocratic mother-in-law Indira - slain in 1984 by her Sikh bodyguards - was premier, gave her an intimate insight into India's turbulent politics.
Rajiv Gandhi became premier after his mother's killing and was assassinated himself in 1991 by a suicide bomber.
Sonia Gandhi, who has described herself as "a reluctant politician", took charge of the Congress in 1998, becoming the fifth member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to serve as party chief.
Although she was hailed as the architect of the 2004 election victory, she eschewed calls to become prime minister and handed the post to the incumbent Singh, partly due to concerns about a political backlash over her foreign origins.
The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, now the main opposition party, had once referred to her as a "foreign doll".
