New Delhi:Congress
leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday described former prime minister Rajiv
Gandhi, assassinated on this day in 1991, as a "father, friend, leader"
who wanted to build "a new India".
In
a tribute after visiting his father's memorial Vir Bhumi here, Rahul
Gandhi said: "Today we remember Rajivji. His vision for a new India - a
modern and progressive India confident of its place in the world.
"I
remember him as a father, a friend and a leader -- a man of many parts
who taught by example the meaning of commitment and compassion."
Earlier,
Rahul Gandhi was accompanied by his mother and Congress president Sonia
Gandhi as well as his sister Priyanka and her husband Robert Vadra who
visited the memorial to pay floral tributes.
Rajiv
Gandhi, who was prime minister from 1984 to 1989, was blown up by a
woman suicide bomber of the now vanquished Tamil Tigers from Sri Lanka
at an election rally near Chennai on May 21, 1991.