Sonia Gandhi will make her fourth visit to Mumbai in 24 years when she arrives

For the fourth time in 24 years, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi will visit Mumbai on Thursday to attend the two-day INDIA National Opposition Conclave.

She will be greeted by prominent party figures including Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, State Chief Nana Patole, and other senior state and national bureaucrats while being accompanied by her son and MP Rahul Gandhi.

It will be Sonia Gandhi’s fourth trip to the nation’s commercial city overall and her first to Mumbai in nine years, according to high-level party insiders, making it “a very exciting and special occasion” for the state unit.

Despite her deteriorating health, she has visited various regions of Maharashtra several times over the last more than three decades in order to carefully follow the state’s politics, according to a top politician who asked to remain anonymous.

By coincidence, the Congress was in office in Maharashtra throughout all of her prior visits, working in coalition with the Nationalist Congress Party.

However, her party would be traveling with the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance.

Sonia Gandhi paid a visit to the victims of the terrible hillslide disaster that rocked Ghatkopar’s Azad Nagar slums after heavy rains on July 15, 2000.

Over 80 slum inhabitants lost their lives as a result of the disaster, and many of them were buried next to their shanties.

The late Vilasrao Deshmukh, the then-chief minister, and other prominent figures had been to the tragedy site with Sonia Gandhi to assess it. They visited the victims at the municipally administered Rajawadi Hospital and distributed compensation to them.

Inaugurating the nation’s first cable-stayed Bandra Worli Sea Link, which bears her late husband and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s name, was the reason for her second journey to Mumbai on July 30, 2009.

At the spectacular event to unveil the RGBWSL, a crucial north-south route that has drastically reduced commuting times, she was surrounded by the then Chief Minister Ashok Chavan and other prominent dignitaries.

In order to reduce traffic and speed up commute times between south Mumbai and the northern suburbs, the RGBWSL is now being expanded to the north and south.

Sonia Gandhi visited Mumbai for the third time on November 24, 2014, to mourn the passing of Murli S. Deora, a party veteran and former Union Minister.

Deora’s passing had undoubtedly brought the party to its knees, and in addition to Sonia Gandhi, many other prominent figures from around the nation had come to pay their respects that day.

Deora’s farewell voyage included the then-chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, members of the Ambani family and other corporate titans, political leaders from various parties, and hundreds of supporters.

Over 100 representatives of the nation’s 28 Opposition political organizations will attend the INDIA Conclave, which is being hosted by MVA ally and former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray of the Shiv Sena (UBT).

It is regarded as Mumbai’s largest political activity of its sort.

Sonia and Rahul will join in the discussions and brainstorming sessions held here, which are anticipated to set the tone for the impending 2024 Lok Sabha elections, in which an assertive INDIA aims to unseat the BJP.