1971 was Indira Gandhi’s finest year: Sonia Gandhi

Congress President Sonia Gandhi has termed 1971 as Indira Gandhi's "finest year" and lauded India's armed forces and the people of Bangladesh for the Liberation War victory that has a distinctive place in the history of the subcontinent.

"The 1971 war victory was the result of extraordinary convergence of a well-planned and perfectly-executed political, diplomatic and military strategy. It was a history that reshaped geography as well," Sonia said addressing the closing ceremony of the party's celebrations of Bangladesh's Liberation War yesterday, reports our New Delhi correspondent.

She recalled how Indira Gandhi had mobilised international support in favour of Bangladesh and "remained supremely composed and confident drawing upon her immense reserve of inner strength" and reached out to all party leaders.

Pointing to the then patchy relationship between the US and India, she said, "Indira ensured that the USSR was with India. She travelled to Western capitals and sensitised the entire world community to the cause of the people of Bangladesh with personal interviews, meetings and appeals."

"And how can we ever forget the manner in which she stood up with the greatest fortitude to the crass insensitivity and crude bullying of the then President of the United States and some of his advisers and did India proud," Sonia added.

The Congress President said Indira would have wanted the party to celebrate 50 years of the 1971 war.

Sonia also described her late mother-in-law as "an inspiration to crores of Indians for her boldness and for her resilience" and narrated how Indira "continues to evoke admiration for her fierce determination to make India self-reliant, especially in agriculture, nuclear energy and space technology, for her commitment to the cause of ecological protection, and for her sensitivity to the concerns of far-flung areas of our country and for its disadvantaged sections."