Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were present at the funeral of Captain Satish Sharma, a key aide and friend of their father, Rajiv Gandhi, in Delhi on Friday. Sharma had died of cancer on Wednesday at the age of 73.
Sharma was a friend of Rajiv Gandhi who quit his career as a pilot to help Rajiv. Sharma was a three-time Lok Sabha MP and Union minister and was considered a loyalist of the Gandhi family.
The Congress circulated images of Rahul Gandhi being one of the pallbearers as Satish Sharma's body was being taken for cremation. The only other pallbearer who was not a relative of Satish Sharma was Sandeep Tiwari, a Congress leader who was close to Sharma.
Priyanka Gandhi and her family paid homage to Satish Sharma's body at the Dayanand Mukti Dham on Lodhi Road in Delhi.
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T.S. Singh Deo, a cabinet minister in the Chhattisgarh government, tweeted that Rahul had cancelled his political plans for Friday to be present for the last rites of Satish Sharma. Deo remembered, "It was Capt Sharma who gave Rahul ji the first tour of every nook and corner of Amethi before his first election (in 2004)."
(With inputs from Puja Awasthi)
