Sonia Gandhi, the president of India's ruling Congress party who is widely seen as the country's most powerful politician, was back home from hospital on Tuesday after she took ill during a marathon parliament debate, officials said.
Gandhi, 66, was led limping out of the lower house on Monday evening by her son and colleagues, and then taken by car to theAll India Institute of Medical Sciences hospital in New Delhi.
A Congress party official said Gandhi had a touch of viralfever and was fine now. "Madam Gandhi is home now. She isperfectly fine," the official said.
The Italian-born politician, who has led her party to twosuccessive terms governing the world's largest democracy, hasplayed a slightly reduced public role since being treated abroadfor an unknown illness in 2011. Still, she is the world's sixth most powerful woman, Forbes magazine said last year.
The party is usually very secretive about Gandhi's health,but several media reports said in 2011 that she had been treatedfor cancer at New York's Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
On Monday, Gandhi participated in a parliament debate on ascheme to provide cheap food to more than two-thirds of India'spoor - one of her pet projects - when she felt unwell.
Gandhi and her son, Rahul, are banking on the nearly $20-billion food security programme to boost the Congressparty's prospects ahead of a difficult election next year andthe party's campaign is built around the two members of theNehru-Gandhi dynasty.
EARLIER STORY: Sonia Gandhi admitted to hospital
The chief of India's ruling Congress party Sonia Gandhi was admitted to hospital on Monday evening suffering from a fever, a party leader said.
Gandhi, who intervened hours earlier in parliament to urge lawmakers to pass a flagship scheme offering subsidised food for the poor, was taken to the leading AIIMS hospital in the capital.
"Madam had a fever," leading Congress parliamentarian Renuka Chowdhury told the Zee News channel, adding that "she needs some rest".
The health of Gandhi, 66, was last in the news in August 2011 when she went to the United States for surgery for an undisclosed illness, reportedly cancer.
Her health and private life are jealously guarded by her advisors.
Other television reports citing unnamed sources said Gandhi had complained of chest pains and had been admitted as a precaution.
Chowdhury said that Gandhi had been "working under tremendous stress, otherwise she is alright".
Late on Monday, India's parliament passed the Food Security Bill, which has been championed by the Congress leader who included it as a manifesto pledge for the last elections in 2009.
She was filmed leaving parliament in the company of her son who escorted her to AIIMS, reports said.