Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said his grandmother Indira Gandhi was a source of strength for him and asserted that he will always protect the India for which she "sacrificed everything".

Indira Gandhi, India's first and only woman prime minister till date, was assassinated by her bodyguards on this day in 1984.

In a heartfelt post in Hindi on Indira Gandhi's death anniversary, Rahul Gandhi said, "My strength, my grandmother." "I will always protect the India for which you sacrificed everything. Your memories are always with me, in my heart," Rahul Gandhi said on X.

His cousin and BJP MP Varun Gandhi also paid tributes to Indira Gandhi saying, "Hundreds of salutations to my grandmother, late Indira Gandhi ji, who was a symbol of unmatched courage and struggle and the pioneer of democratic socialism, on her martyrdom day." "Along with the determination to take tough decisions, you also had a very simple and gentle tenderness towards motherhood. You are truly the 'Mother of the Nation'," Varun Gandhi said of his grandmother.

While Rahul is the son of Indira Gandhi's elder son Rajiv, Varun Gandhi is the son of her younger son Sanjay.

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