RAE BARELI, May 8: India’s ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi was set for a landslide victory on Monday in a by-election aimed at bringing her back to parliament after she resigned to calm a political storm.

But sizzling temperatures kept people indoors and only 40 per cent of some one million registered voters turned out in her home constituency of Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh state, electoral officials announced.

“It’s the heat that kept people indoors,” a Congress party spokesman said as the temperature touched 42 degrees Celsius in Rae Bareli, a bastion of India’s Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

The voting was marred by a solitary incident in which unidentified gunmen shot at a rival political activist, police said.

Also on Monday millions of Indians voted in the final phase of elections to several state assemblies, which are seen as a referendum on the federal Congress-led government as it approaches two years in power.—AFP