Sonia Gandhi inaugurates statue of Shankarrao Chavan in Nanded

Nanded (Maharashtra), July 14 (ANI): Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday inaugurated a library and a memorial statue of former party leader Shankarrao Chavan on the occasion of his birth anniversary in Maharashtra's Nanded. Other senior party leaders, including former prime minister Manmohan Singh, former Maharashtra chief Ashok Chavan and former home minister Shivraj Patil, were also present at the occasion. Addressing a public rally later, Gandhi praised the "regional as well as national leader", saying he had served as an example of democracy when he was alive unlike the present federal government. "Shankarrao ji had one quality. He always had great faith in constitutional procedure. He would have never thought of acting beyond constitutional boundaries unlike the existing government that, acting on the greed of power, unconstitutionally brought down the elected governments in Arunachal and Uttarakhand," she said. The deceased Shankarrao Chavan had served two terms as Maharashtra chief minister and had also served in the union cabinet as interior minister and finance minister. The Supreme Court on Wednesday quashed President's Rule in Arunachal Pradesh state and reinstated the Congress government. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government had imposed President's Rule in January after the government ruling there suffered internal splits. Congress, whose power base has shrunk across India since the BJP won a landslide general election in 2014, also saw its rule reinstated in May in Uttarakhand, where President's Rule had been imposed as BJP attempted to wrest control. (ANI)