NEW DELHI, June 17 (UNI) The Congress today said the four-day visit of Congress President Sonia Gandhi to the Russian Federation had been successful.
"It will go a long way in further consolidating the relationship between India and Russia," Party Spokesman Anand Sharma told mediapersons here.
Gandhi, accompanied by External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, returned from her Russian trip early this morning.
Sharma said Gandhi, who visited Russia in response to an invitation from President Vladimir Putin, held wide ranging discussions with Putin and also the Russian Prime Minister.
On BJP allegtion about hiring a Reliance super jet for her Russian trip, Sharma said, " a responsible national party should not bring down debate to this level.
We would like to hear from them more on issues of national concern." He reiterated that the Congress had paid for the chartered aircraft.
The Reliance jet was hired on grounds of security.
The mode of transport and other security aspects are decided by the SPG as she under SPG-protection," he added.
Saying that the BJP too had been chartering planes from private companies, he cited the trips of BJP leader A B Vajpayee, L K Advani, Arun Jaitley, Pramod Mahajan and Sushma Swaraj.
As recently as three days ago, Jaswant Singh travelled to Israel on a chartered plane hired from a private company.
"Most of them had hired private plane to go on pilgrimage or pleasure trips," he said in reply to a question.
As for the external affairs minister accompanying Gandhi, Sharma said Singh had been dealing with foreign affairs related matters in the party.
"He is even now the head of the foreign affairs cell in the party." "Therefore it is only appropriate that Singh accompanies the Congress President when she visits a country which is a permanent member of the UN Security Council," he added.
