Sources disclose that Sonia Gandhi is reportedly off on a week's vacation. She is set to fly to her maika, Italy on June 18 where she will spend a few days with the Italian side of her family.
It is learnt that Rio De Janeiro in Brazil was also part of the Congress President's itinerary, but that part of the trip has been dropped. The reasons are not known.
Her son, the All India Congress Committee General Secretary Rahul Gandhi is currently in London, say sources in the party. He is likely to celebrate his birthday on June 19 abroad.
It is expected that he may join his mother in Italy for a few days, but that again is not confirmed. While Rahul Gandhi is known to take off for cooler vacations whenever he feels the need (which is rather frequent), but that is not the case with his mother who has not taken many holidays in the recent past.
Her foreign trips have also been few and far between, and that too, for meetings or official engagements.
Ever since Sonia Gandhi became the Congress President 10 years ago, she has not made more than a couple of trips to Italy. At least they are not in the public domain.
Because of the huge campaign launched by the oppsition Bharatiya Janata Party and others on her foreign origin issue, sources say that the Congress president has been extremely sensitive on the issue of her Italian origin, and has scrupulously kept the earlier part of her life in Italy in the shadows.
There are reports of course of her mother visiting her quite frequently at 10, Janpath and in her list of assets, the Congress President has listed a house in Italy as one of her possessions. Few years back, her mother attended a public function in her constituency Raibareli, also.
There is speculation that the much needed reshuffle of the AICC may take place in her absence with the Congress president holding discussions with her political secretary Ahmed Patel and others.
A meeting of the Core Committee of the Congress leaders is also being held on Friday evening to discuss the appointment of governors, and other key appointments that are waiting to be made, whether in the bureaucracy, the AICC or in other parts of the government.
But many times in the past, speculation has been proved wrong and if the right people are not found for the right positions, the exercise may be shelved for the time being and postponed to a later date.
Some proposed changes in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's cabinet, which are to be made to correct the anomalies, are also being postponed, probably till the first 100 days of the government are over.
