Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will visit his father and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s memorial in Sriperumbudur on May 21 on the latter’s 32nd death anniversary. Gandhi, who will be in Bengaluru on May 20 to attend the swearing-in of the new Congress government, is likely to land in Tamil Nadu the same night.
The next morning, Rahul will visit the memorial in Sriperumbudur, 50 km from Chennai, and take part in the prayer meeting to be held at 8 am.
“Rahul Gandhi will participate in the event to observe the death anniversary of his father Rajiv Gandhi on Sunday,” Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) chief K S Alagiri said in a statement. He said the visit assumes significance in the wake of the Congress defeating the BJP’s “communal agenda” by a wide margin in Karnataka.
This is the second time Rahul Gandhi will be visiting Rajiv’s memorial in a year – the former MP was in Sriperumbudur on September 7 before launching his Bharat Jodo Yatra.
Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a LTTE suicide bomber on May 21, 1991, before he was to address a public meeting in Sriperumbudur. While the suicide bomber Dhanu and others died along with Rajiv, as many as 26 people were arrested and sentenced to death by a local court.
However, the death sentence of only seven people was confirmed by the Supreme Court. All the seven were released in 2022 on the grounds that they had spent over 30 years in prison.
(Published 18 May 2023, 15:28 IST)
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