New Delhi, March 12: The march has brought the Congress's focus back on Sonia Gandhi just when the party was reluctantly preparing for her "retirement" and replacement by son Rahul.

The enthusiasm among the Congress leaders reminded some of a 1998 march in Delhi when Sonia, having just taken over as party chief, led a protest against onion prices.

Rahul's absence from the march to Manmohan Singh's residence at 3 Motilal Nehru Marg was hardly missed today, raising some veterans' hopes that Sonia might hang around a little longer.

Sources claimed Sonia was viewing the summons to Singh as a political opportunity - like the one Morarji Desai's government had handed Indira Gandhi by arresting her in the late 1970s.

Out of power and short of public sympathy, Indira had used her two arrests to gain a martyr's image, turn the tables on the ruling Janata Party and stage a comeback.

But there is a significant difference between then and now. A court has issued the summons to Singh while the Janata government and those perceived to be close to the executive were behind the crackdown on Indira.

In the current mood against corruption and in spite of complaints of judicial activism, the judiciary is seen as the last line of defence against transgressions in high places.

So far, the Narendra Modi government has publicly stayed away from the coal case. In fact, the CBI had filed the closure report citing the absence of prosecutable evidence in the coal case last year when the NDA was in power.

If the government continues to keep its hands off, the Congress will find it difficult to build its case that Singh is the victim of a witch-hunt.

In view of the inherent risks in criticising the judiciary beyond a point and in the absence of a clearly identifiable target, it remains to be seen whether Sonia's campaign will touch a public chord or its utility will be confined to boosting the morale of the Congress ranks.

Histrionics too play a decisive role while tugging at the collective heartstrings of the country. Singh has so far shown no evidence of being partial to theatre in public life.

But Sonia has seen some of the most dramatic moments in post-Independent India from close quarters.

Sonia was at 12 Willingdon Crescent preparing tea for her mother-in-law around 5pm on October 3, 1977, when CBI superintendent N.K. Singh knocked on the door. He had come to arrest Indira on the charge that she had misused her powers when she was Prime Minister.

"Handcuff me!" Indira shrieked at the officer. "I will not go unless I'm handcuffed."

As Sonia watched stoically, brother-in-law Sanjay Gandhi made frantic phone calls to Congress supporters. From another telephone, Indira aide R.K. Dhawan called the media.

Indira kept delaying her arrest till reporters had arrived in large numbers.

"Where is the warrant of arrest and the FIR report?" she asked N.K. Singh.

When the officer struggled to produce the documents, Indira's lawyer Frank Anthony chipped in: "Is that (Union home minister) Charan Singh's new law?"

"I'll not budge until you handcuff me," Indira insisted. "Bring the handcuffs and take me."

She was eventually taken - without handcuffs - to the officers' mess at the police lines close to the Delhi-Haryana border. The next morning, a magistrate's court in Haryana released her on the technical ground of jurisdiction: the CBI had erred in taking Indira out of Delhi.

The episode prompted Rajiv Gandhi, who was still to join politics, to comment to the French newspaper Le Monde: "Even Mummy herself couldn't have written a better scenario."

"Political prisoners", commented Le Monde, "are often regarded as martyrs in India, where prison, as was once the case for the majority of members of Desai's government, can be an antechamber of power."

Indira was arrested again in December 1978 on the charge of electoral malpractice and spent a week in Tihar jail.

She was put in a solitary barracks, in the complex that George Fernandes had occupied during the Emergency. Sonia used to bring Indira three meals from home every day.

Many in the Congress feel that if the Modi government tries to "fix" Singh, it will hand the party an opportunity to make political gains, thanks to Singh's image of integrity.

They are unsure, though, whether Singh might have the inclination or chutzpah to cry "handcuff me" if CBI sleuths ever come knocking at 3 Motilal Nehru Marg.