Sonia Gandhi and Sushil Kumar Shinde at a power project inauguration in Rae Bareli on Wednesday. (AP)

Rae Bareli, Dec. 6: Sonia Gandhi today showered her constituency Rae Bareli with gifts worth at least Rs 2,500 crore, including a railway coach factory which has been cleared by the cabinet.

The Congress president was here to inaugurate the fifth unit of the Feroze Gandhi Unchahar Thermal Power Station. Union power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde was with her.

“I believe these projects in the long run will contribute to the development of the entire state,” she said, announcing the coach factory and upgradation of Maitreyee Project, a unit for production of spare parts for heavy industry.

The Maitreyee project will cost Rs 1,500 crore. “I have written to the state government for land for the project…. The state is yet to respond,” Sonia added.

A unit of the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) will open in Rae Bareli, she said. The Lucknow-Rae Bareli road will get National Highway status.

The announcements came at a time when chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav is busy doling out projects worth hundreds of crores across the state, ahead of the Assembly elections early next year.

The Congress is planning to make development an election plank, and will showcase Rae Bareli.

Sonia said she was committed to fulfil the dream of her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi, who had laid down the roadmap for the development of the constituency.

“Although various development projects were initiated during Indira Gandhi’s time, many of these could not survive after her death. It is my duty to complete all these schemes,” the Congress chief said.

Indira Gandhi had set up the Indian Telephone Industries (ITI), the first such company outside Bangalore, which employed 12,000 people in Rae Bareli.

But ITI fell on bad times and had to lay off half its staff over the years. Sonia launched a revival scheme after she won from the constituency in 2004.