Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday invoked her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi to send a message that but for the former prime minister's "much reviled" bank nationalisation four decades back the country's financial institutions would have been hit by the current global economic crisis.

"Every passing day bears out the wisdom of that decision (bank nationalisation in 1969)," Gandhi said in her address at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.

"If you allow me the liberty of showing what is to you the proverbial 'red rag to bull', Let me take you back to Indira Gandhi's much reviled bank nationalisation of 40 years ago," she told the distinguished gathering.

Gandhi went on to say that "Our prudence has been marked in the case of the financial sector."

Lauding the public sector financial institutions, Gandhi said they have given the country's economy the stability and resilience we are witnessing in the face of the economic slowdown.

Prudence implies ensuring an economic system that imposes clear, fair rules and rewards those who play by them, Gandhi said.

It implies a system that insists upon transparency in all economic transactions, and accountability on the part of those who conduct them, she added.

"And it implies a system that accepts the need for supervisory institutions to serve as effectaive watchdogs, so that the interests of society as whole are not overlooked in the justifiable quest for corporate gain," she said.