Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and China’s Communist Party were among those who congratulated Congress president Rahul Gandhi for the 84th Congress Plenary session.

In letters addressed to Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and the party, the leaderships expressed their desire to work with the Congress party to further their respective ties with India.

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“We will remain grateful to India for its policy towards preserving the rights of the Palestinians, particularly within the United Nations,” read the letter written by Nabeel Shaath, Advisor to Palestinian President, on Abbas’ behalf.

Underlining that Palestine and India have maintained close cooperation “under the rule of the Congress party”, Abbas praised Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajeev Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi for “defending the Palestinian cause” in Non Aligned Movement (NAM).

“We are quite confident that the newly elected leader, Rahul Gandhi, will follow the path of his ancestors in promoting relations and friendship between our two peoples,” he wrote while stressing upon the desire of the Palestinian people to live in an independent and sovereign state of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital on the 1967 borders.

The Bangladeshi PM recalled the assistance provided by Indira Gandhi in the 1971 Bangladeshi War of Liberation (known as Indo-Pak War in India) in her letter addressed to Sonia Gandhi.

“I also recall with gratefulness for the enormous help and cooperation extended to us during the crucial period of our lifetime after the assassination of my father and our Father of the Nation Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with most of his family members on 15 August 1975,” she wrote underlining the various commonalities in India and Bangladesh on which the bilateral ties are based.

She said that her party, the Awami League, will be sending a three-member delegation for the concluding session of the Plenary to be held on Sunday.

The Communist Party of China, meanwhile, highlighted the role played by the Congress in the development of India-China relations.

“The CPC is willing to work together with the INC to explore, through increased communication and exchanges, a new type of party-to-party relations that seeks to expand common ground,” the letter from the CPC reads.

African National Congress president Cyril Ramaphosa, too, conveyed his greetings to Rahul Gandhi. He recalled the time when Jawaharlal Nehru, in 1946, had said that India will boycott South Africa if apartheid is not abolished and kept his promise thereby earning the gratitude of millions of South Africans fighting against racism.

The Congress began its 84th plenary session on Saturday. Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and other leaders addressed the session on the first day of the two-day event in which they attacked the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over policies and type of politics and highlighted the achievements of the Congress over the years since independence.