Poor health on Wednesday forced Sonia Gandhi, president of India’s ruling Congress party, to cancel her first public speech since undergoing surgery in August, a party spokesman said. Gandhi was expected to signal her return to party business by addressing a rally in the north Indian state of Uttarakhand but she pulled out after being diagnosed with “viral fever”, Congress spokesman Janardhan Dwiwedi told AFP. “She has been running a viral fever since yesterday, so today we cancelled the plan for her to go to Uttarakhand,” he said Wednesday. “I don’t think the fever will last beyond three or four days.” Speculation over Gandhi’s health and the future of the Congress party has been mounting ever since she went to the United States three months ago to receive treatment for an undisclosed illness, thought to be cancer. She has since appeared in public several times, but has not spoken and her party has given no further details about the nature of her illness or her treatment.
