Congress president Sonia Gandhi, admitted to a hospital here for an infection in the lower respiratory tract, was "stable and recovering well", a hospital statement said Friday.

"Sonia Gandhi was admitted to Sir Ganga Ram Hospital on Thursday evening with lower respiratory tract infection and some breathing difficulty for further treatment and observation," Ajay Swaroop, chairman (officiating) of the hospital's board of management said in a statement.

"Her condition is stable and she is recovering well," he added. Gandhi was admitted under the care of Arup Kumar Basu, senior consultant and chairman of respiratory medicine and he is leading a team of doctors closely monitoring her. According to doctors, the problem was quite common in the winter season.

There has been a lot of speculation about Gandhi's health after her 2011 surgery in the US where she spent about five weeks and reportedly underwent a successful surgery at New York's Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. According to media reports, she was also treated for mild asthma for six days in 2008.

Ahead of the Tripura assembly polls in February 2013, Gandhi, who was scheduled to address two election meetings in the state, cancelled her visit due to ill health and in April 2014, she again cancelled her day-long tour of Maharashtra citing health reasons.

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