Sonia Gandhi, the president of India's ruling Congress party, has returned from a checkup in the United States six months after surgery for an undisclosed condition, a spokesman said Monday. "Sonia Gandhi is back in New Delhi. She's perfectly fine and all her medical reports are up to the mark," Congress party spokesman Janardhan Dwivedi told AFP.
Italian-born Gandhi is the widow of assassinated former premier Rajiv Gandhi and widely seen as India's most powerful politician, with her key power-broking position at the head of the party. The 65-year-old travelled to the United States last week for a routine follow-up after her treatment last August. The diagnosis that led to the surgery and kept her out of the country for five weeks last year has never been divulged.
Her first post-surgery public appearance came in early October and it was another two months before she gave her first public speech. But she campaigned actively in a string of state elections that wound up at the weekend, delivering energetic speeches and meeting voters.