Former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ashok Gehlot also paid homage to the former prime minister on his birth anniversary that is celebrated as 'Sadbhavna divas'.
Born on August 20, 1944, Rajiv Gandhi represented Uttar Pradesh's Amethi parliamentary constituency four times.
He served as the sixth Prime Minister of India from 1984 to 1989. Rajiv took office after the assassination of his mother, then prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1984.
He was assassinated in a suicide bombing at Tamil Nadu's Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991, and was later cremated at Veer Bhumi, on the banks of the river Yamuna.