PRESIDENT Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday paid floral tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat here on his death anniversary. Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh also paid floral tributes to Gandhi at his memorial. A two-minute silence was also observed for the Father of the Nation. In a post on X, Modi said, “I pay homage to Pujya Bapu on his Punya Tithi. I also pay homage to all those who have been martyred for our nation. Their sacrifices inspire us to serve the people and fulfil their vision for our nation.”

 

Another X handle, which often shares anecdotes and developments linked to the Prime Minister’s life, posted some pages from Modi’s personal diary carrying quotes from Gandhi. Cong pays tributes to Bapu: ON Mahatma Gandhi’s death anniversary, the Congress asserted that the true tribute to the father of the nation would be to not let the “flame of truth and harmony” be extinguished in the “storm of hatred”. The party also said that those who glorify Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse should not and will not be allowed to define the idea of India.

 

In a post on ‘X’, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge cited a quote of Mahatma Gandhi, “The enemy is fear. We think it’s hate but it is fear.” “On Martyrs Day, we pay our respects to Bapu, the moral compass of our nation. We must pledge to fight against those who seek to destroy his ideals based on ‘sambhav’ and ‘sarvodaya’,” Kharge said. “Let us do everything to protect the India of ‘unity in diversity’ and ensure justice, equality and fraternity among our people,” he said. In a post on ‘X’ in Hindi, former Congress President Rahul Gandhi said that on this very day, the ideology of hatred and violence had snatched away the revered Bapu from the country. “And, today the same thinking wants to snatch away his principles and ideals from us,” he said.