SRIPERUMBUDUR Italian-born Sonia Gandhi plunged into active politics on Sunday, launching the election campaign for her late husband Rajiv Gandhi's beleaguered Congress Party in the southern Indian town where he was murdered. Thousands of party loyalists and villagers cheered as the 51-year-old widow made a confident speech in which she said she aimed for no office but wanted to help the party which ruled India for decades but suffered its worst electoral debacle in 1996.

Long Live Mother Sonia, an estimated 6,000 people shouted cheerfully. Long Live the Symbol of Congress's Hope, they said. I stand today on the soil drenched by the blood of my husband who died a martyr for the unity of the country..., Sonia said in Sriperumbudur, where the former prime minister was killed by a woman suicide bomber in 1991. In the years since Rajiv Gandhi left us, I chose to lead a private life, but the time has come when I feel compelled to put behind private wishes, she said.

A live orchestra played the music of a welcome song as Sonia, wearing a green sari with a maroon border, arrived with her daughter, Priyanka, in a school playground in the town, about 60 km (40 miles) from Madras, capital of the state of Tamil Nadu. Women in colourful saris, many of them barefoot, waited behind wooden barricades for hours in the scorching sun to hear Sonia, who earlier offered jasmine flowers at a white granite memorial to her husband at the spot where he was murdered.

She later spoke from a stage decorated with portraits of her husband Rajiv and herself, under a canopy decorated with her party's tricolour and its symbol, a raised hand. At the center of the symbol was a portrait of Sonia. Men in cotton waist wraparounds in traditional Tamil style and women, many of them clutching Congress Party's saffron, white and green flags, waved and repeatedly cheered the Gandhi widow, whose family has given India three prime ministers ruling for 38 of the 51 years since independence from Britain in 1947.

Although I am aware of its shortcomings, I think it (the Congress) is the only party which can provide a stable government to the country, Sonia Gandhi said in halting but clear English, as a local leader interpreted in Tamil. A vote for the Congress Party is a vote for an India that Rajiv Gandhi envisioned, an India that is strong, independent and self-confident, she said.

Sonia Gandhi's speech marked the return of India's influential Nehru-Gandhi family into active politics weeks before February-March mid-term elections that followed the collapse of two center-left coalitions last year. The Congress Party has been plagued by corruption scandals and an absence of charisma. Personal magnetism has often been cited as the Gandhi family's strength. Fifty-foot-high wooden colour portraits of Jawharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, his daughter Indira, her son Rajiv and his wife Sonia stood around the schoolground where crowds arrived in dozens of trucks festooned with handbills bearing Gandhi family images.

When I0entered the family of my husband 30 years ago I had become a part of India, said Sonia, who comes from a middle-class family in Milan. It is this devotion that brings me before you today, not to seek office, but to share my concerns about the future of the country, she said. She expressed concern over attempts to divide the people on caste, religion and language basis and said the Congress alone was opposed to such divisions.

The centrist Congress faces its main challenge from Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). (Reuter)