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President, Sonia Gandhi pay tributes to Indira Gandhi

President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice-President Hamid Ansari and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi paid tributes to ex-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on her 99th birth anniversary at her former residence at Safdarjung Road here.

A prayer meeting was held on the occasion.

In a separate function held at AICC headquarters early Saturday morning, Sonia Gandhi, Congress 
vice-president Rahul Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh along with top party leaders 
paid rich floral tributes to Indira Gandhi.

A speech of Indira Gandhi was also played during the programme wherein she had spelt out the responsibilities towards maintaining unity and integrity of the nation as well as protecting the girl child.
Senior Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ahmed Patel, Motilal Bora, Anand Sharma, Randeep Surjewala and others also attended the function.

Rahul Gandhi remembered the late leader and his grandmother as a warrior and revolutionary.

“Remembering Indiraji:a warrior, a revolutionary, a woman of conviction, compassion & sacrifice. My grandmother, my friend, my ever guiding light,” he said in a tweet.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also paid tributes to former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on her 99th birth anniversary.

“Tributes to former Prime Minister Smt Indira Gandhi on her birth anniversary,” he tweeted.

Born on 19 November, 1917, Gandhi served as Prime Minister from 1966 to 1977 and then again from 1980 until her assassination in 1984.

Congress traditionally holds Indira Gandhi’s birth anniversary function at Shakti Sthal, but the venue was shifted to AICC headquarters in view of closure of the memorial due to bird flu.

At another function in the Central hall of Parliament, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, former Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi paid floral tributes to Indira Gandhi on her birth anniversary.

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi and TMC Lok Sabha MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay were also present.

Among other dignitaries who paid tributes to the former Prime Minster included Union ministers, Members of Parliament and Secretaries-General of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha Anoop Mishra and Shumsher K Sheriff respectively.

A booklet containing the profile of Indira Gandhi, brought out in Hindi and English by the Lok Sabha Secretariat, was presented to the dignitaries at the function.

The portrait of Indira Gandhi was unveiled by the then President R Venkataraman in the Central Hall of 
Parliament House on November 19, 1987.
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