Sonia Gandhi leaves for United States for health check-up with son Rahul

New Delhi, Sep 12: Congress President Sonia Gandhi left for the United States on Saturday for a routine medical check-up, with her son Rahul Gandhi. The Congress chief will not attend the first part of parliament's monsoon session - starting Monday.

Gandhi, 73, is expected to be away for around a fortnight and would miss more than half of the Monsoon Session of Parliament.

Her medical check-up was overdue and was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reports said Gandhi left for abroad early on Saturday and would return in the last week of September.

She had cleared the Congress'' organisational restructuring before departing for her medical check-up.

The most notable of the leaders removed from the post of party general secretary is Ghulam Nabi Azad, the de-facto leader of a group of 23 senior party men, who had written to Mrs Gandhi seeking sweeping changes in the party's organisational structure.

Motilal Vora, Ambika Soni and Mallikarjun Kharge were also removed as general secretaries of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in the Friday shuffle by Gandhi.

The group had talked about "collective leadership" of the party in the letter, which was seen as an attack on the Gandhis.