Nothing to worry? Sonia Gandhi addresses an AICC meeting. File picture

New Delhi, Jan. 6: Sonia Gandhi today returned home after recovering from an asthma attack and chest infection, just as Congress workers were getting edgy about her “prolonged stay” in hospital.

However, the Congress president will not meet party colleagues for another week as she has been advised rest. Sonia, 61, was admitted to Sir Ganga Ram Hospital on New Year’s Eve with mild breathing problems.

Dr B.K. Rao, the hospital board chairman, said: “She is stable and has been advised to continue rest.”

Sonia was given antibiotics and bronchodilators by a three-member team of doctors.

In Congress circles, the news of Sonia’s return to 10 Janpath was received with great relief. An AICC general secretary who asked not to be named said: “For us, the New Year has begun now.”

Over the past six days, the mood in the Congress had swung from concern to despair. Initially, party workers had accepted the doctors’ account of infection and hoped she would be discharged in a “day or two”. But from Friday afternoon, unsubstantiated rumours about Sonia’s health began doing the rounds, leaving many distressed.

Back home now, the party chief has a lot on her hands. A majority of her Congress colleagues feels it is time to introspect following the election defeats in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Ballia in Uttar Pradesh. General elections are due next year.

One section, which includes many Union ministers and AICC functionaries, believes the party needs a rethink on secularism. This group wants Sonia to identify more with the majority community to dispel the “wrong impression” perpetuated by Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and the BJP that the Congress cares only for the minorities.

The think tank is wary of the blend of economic Right, nationalism and religion in the BJP’s arsenal as opposed to the Congress’s loose liberal-socialist-secular mix.

But the liberals in the party are against any “course correction” because they fear that while tackling the BJP in its citadels like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Delhi, such a strategy could “drag the Congress down the same path (as the rival party)”.

These four states, along with six others, go to the polls this year. The Congress, which sees these as a dress rehearsal for the general elections, will be looking to make up for some of last month’s reverses.

Those leaders who bank on the stars are hoping that Makar Sankranti, an auspicious day that falls on January 14, will usher in a new era and see a more assertive Sonia. Sankranti stands for “positive movement”.

A Union minister credited Sonia with “radical thinking” but said this was followed up in a “conservative” manner.

Soon after the Gujarat debacle, Union minister Arjun Singh had urged Sonia to be a “lot more assertive”.

A section of the Congress wants her to ponder why the backward classes, tribals and Scheduled Castes are drifting away from the party in spite of its avowed commitment to their cause. This group believes the party lacks credible faces representing these sections in the Union cabinet, AICC secretariat and state Congress units.

Another group feels the real worry is why the policy of “economic Right and social Left” is not working.

The party also needs to set its house in order. In several states, the Congress committee executive has not been constituted for over a year for lack of consensus.

In the AICC, several general secretaries, including Rahul Gandhi, are working without deputies as work has not been allocated to the secretaries.

Also, the “future challenges panel” set up last September by Sonia to serve as a “think tank” is floundering and has not held a meeting in two months.