Sonia Gandhi surgery successful: Report

The leader of India's ruling party and head of its political dynasty, Sonia Gandhi, had an operation in the United States Thursday according to reports, after leaving her son jointly in charge.

Without citing a source, the Press Trust of India said: "It was learnt tonight that the Congress leader had undergone a successful surgery in a US hospital."

It added that a statement on the 64-year-old's health was expected Friday by either her family or her doctors.

Ruling Congress Party spokesman Janardhan Dwivedi told AFP earlier that Gandhi was to have an operation for an unspecified condition, refusing to give further details.

"On the advice of her doctors, she travelled abroad and she is likely to be away for two to three weeks," Dwivedi said.

India's Tehelka news magazine said on microblogging site Twitter that Gandhi was admitted Thursday to New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the world's largest private cancer centre according to the hospital website.

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 as Congress Party president.

Dwivedi said that in her absence, Gandhi had 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.

She is missing the start of 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.

Gandhi's absence for the opening of the new session on Monday was noted in the Indian media but explained by an apparent "viral infection" she was said to be suffering from.

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."

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