Delhi, August 20, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday paid homage to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on his birth anniversary, remembering the former Congress leader who served as India’s Prime Minister from 1984 to 1989.
Taking to X, PM Modi said, “On the occasion of his birth anniversary, paying homage to former Prime Minister of India, Shri Rajiv Gandhi.”
Born on August 20, 1944, in Bombay, now Mumbai, Rajiv Gandhi became India’s youngest Prime Minister at the age of 40 after the assassination of his mother, Indira Gandhi, on October 31, 1984. He also served as Congress president during his tenure as Prime Minister.
Rajiv Gandhi represented a generational transition in Indian politics and led the Congress to one of its biggest electoral victories in the 1984 Lok Sabha elections. The party won 401 of the 508 seats it contested.
The son of Indira Gandhi and Feroze Gandhi, Rajiv spent much of his childhood at Teen Murti House with his grandfather, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. He studied at the Doon School in Dehradun and later attended Trinity College, Cambridge, before moving to Imperial College London to study mechanical engineering.
Before entering politics, Rajiv Gandhi pursued his interest in aviation and worked as a commercial pilot with Indian Airlines. His political career began after the death of his younger brother Sanjay Gandhi in a plane crash in 1980. He subsequently contested and won the Amethi Lok Sabha by-election.
Rajiv Gandhi married Sonia Maino in 1968, and the couple had two children, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.
After the Congress lost the 1989 general elections, Rajiv Gandhi became Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. He was assassinated in a bomb blast at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu on May 21, 1991, while campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections.
His birth anniversary is observed as Sadbhavana Diwas, or Harmony Day, across the country.
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