New Delhi, Oct. 31 (IANS): Former President Pranab Mukherjee, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday paid tributes to former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on her 33rd death anniversary.
They paid floral tributes to the late Prime Minister at Shakti Sthal here.
“We pay tribute to a dynamic leader; India’s first and only female PM and 1999’s ‘Woman of the Millennium’, Indira Gandhi,” the Congress party said in a series of tweets.
They posted a picture of their leader and her message “Martyrdom does not end something, it is only a beginning”.
“Remembering Indiraji and her immense passion for India and its people. She was a leader whose conviction remains unparalleled,” the party said.
It quoted Indira Gandhi’s own words posting with the tweet that read, “If I die a violent death, as some fear and a few are plotting. I know that the violence will be in the thought and the action of the assassins, not in my dying.”
She was the daughter of the first Prime Minister late Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Born on November 19, 1917, Indira Gandhi was assassinated on October 31, 1984, by her bodyguards.
The assassination came a few months after she ordered the storming of the Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar in the “Operation Blue Star” to counter the Punjab insurgency.
She held office from January 1966 to March 1977, and again from January 14, 1980 till her death.
1971 war: Parrikar hails Indira, says Pakistan didn’t learn a lesson
Panaji: Praising the leadership of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Goa Chief Minister and former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Tuesday said despite being taught a good lesson in 1971, Pakistan is yet to become any wiser.
While speaking at joint observance of Rashtriya Ekta Diwas and Rashtriya Sankalp Diwas in the state capital: “Indira Gandhi gave the country good leadership. In 1971, she taught our enemy on the western border a good lesson, but Pakistan is still not getting any wiser.”
The India-Pakistan war of 1971 led to the liberation of East Pakistan and the formation of Bangladesh.
The Rashtriya Sankalp Diwas is observed to mark the death anniversary of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, while the Rashtriya Ekta Diwas is celebrated to mark the birth anniversary of India’s first Home Minister Sardar Patel.
