Sonia Gandhi marches to support ex-PM Singh in court summons

Friday, 13 March 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

NEW DELHI (Reuters): The top leadership of India’s Congress party including its enigmatic president Sonia Gandhi walked to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s home on Thursday in a unusual display of support after he was summoned to court in a corruption case.

The most recognisable of the ministers who served under Singh strode through the leafy streets of central Delhi to his colonial-era bungalow where he stood outside smiling, his wife by his side. Gandhi, 68, who rarely speaks in public off the campaign trail, rallied to Singh’s cause in apparent recognition of his loyalty to her family, which last year was replaced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as India’s top political force. “We are fully behind him, we will fight this legally and with all the means at our command, we are sure that he will be fully vindicated,” Gandhi said, flanked by the former defence and finance ministers who dominated government for a decade. Elsewhere, in the heartland state of Uttar Pradesh, hundreds of Congress workers briefly stopped trains in sit-in protests on railway tracks.