President, PM pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi

NEW DELHI - President Pratibha Patil, Vice President Hamid Ansari and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Saturday led the nation in paying homage to Mahatma Gandhi on his 141st birth anniversary.

The president, the vice president, the prime minister and Congress president Sonia Gandhi laid floral wreaths at Rajghat — the memorial to the Mahatma on the banks of the Yamuna.

All of them observed a minute’s silence at the blackstone memorial.

Among the other early visitors were US ambassador Timothy Roemer and Bharatiya Janata Party leaders L.K. Advani and Sushma Swaraj.

Rajghat was also visited by a large number of people including schoolchildren, some of whom sang devotional songs and showered flowers at the memorial.

“I’ve been coming here for three years to pay homage to Bapu,” said Moin Ahmed, a Class 8 student of Kendriya Vidyalaya in Gole Market area here.

Rajghat was decorated with flowers and the Mahatma’s favourite devotional song “Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram” played in the background.

The birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi is celebrated as Gandhi Jayanti across the country with reverence. It is also marked as the International Day of Non-Violence.

Gandhi, born this day in 1869 at Porbandar in Gujarat, played a key role in India’s independence struggle. He was assassinated on Jan 30, 1948.