New Delhi: Faced with the global financial meltdown, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Friday pitched for an “effectively collaborative” partnership between the public and private sector, apprehending difficulties for India in the changed scenario.

“Collaboration is imperative because we are all in this together. The problems we face today affect us all ... Let us be effectively collaborative,” Gandhi said, addressing the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.

Maintaining that it was “too early” to say whether the global dangers have been contained, she admitted “India, too, is not immune to the contagion ... We will face difficulties.”

With the Lok Sabha elections not far away, Gandhi’s mantra was prudence as she talked of pursuing liberalisation within a framework of “sensible” regulation.

As the Indian banking system withstood the financial crisis, the UPA chairperson chose the occasion to lavish praise on late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s decision to nationalise banks which she said was “much reviled”.

“Every passing day bears out the wisdom of that decision. Public sector financial institutions have given our economy the stability and resilience we are now witnessing in the face of the economic slowdown,” Gandhi said.

She preceded the remark by asking the audience, which included several captains of industry, to give her the liberty to show them the proverbial “red rag to the bull”.

Seeking to do the balancing act, she told the industrialists that “we do not wish to tie their hands ... They need to be helped and are being helped.”