Women's empowerment necessary to fulfil Rajiv's dream: Sonia

Rae Bareli, July 30 (UNI) United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Chairperson and AICC President Sonia Gandhi today said late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's dream could only be fulfilled if women were empowered in society.

Addressing a gathering here at the Feroze Gandhi degree college, Ms Gandhi said the late PM had firm belief in the upliftment of women. ''He believed that women upliftment could help the country prosper,'' she added.

The AICC President noted that Mr Gandhi always stood for women's empowerment and believed in the potential of the fairer sex.

Meanwhile, political observers are linking Ms Gandhi's statement to the recent election of Ms Pratibha Patil as the country's first woman President.

Ms Gandhi was felicitated by the intelligentsia of Rae Bareli for making Patil the first woman President of India.

From the war of Independence to politics and even space, women have left their mark in every walk of life today, she asserted.

The Rae Bareli MP claimed that her late husband Rajiv Gandhi reluctantly entered politics following the assassination of his mother and then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Earlier in the day, Ms Gandhi felicitated freedom fighters of Rae Bareli and said the 1857 struggle for independence should not be merely termed as a ''sepoy mutiny.'' UNI