Father's assassination made me furious: Priyanka Gandhi

For the first few years after her father's assassination, Priyanka Gandhi, the daughter of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, said she had been absolutely furious.

"I didn't realise (at that time), but I was absolutely furious. Not with any individual, but with the whole world," Priyanka Gandhi said in an interview to a TV channel.

Her father was assassinated by a LTTE suicide bomber while campaigning for the 1991 general elections in Sriperumbudur, in Tamil Nadu.

"I guess that I was young, therefore you are more angry," she said, adding that it was a "slow process" to realise that she was "furious" over her father's death. "But that anger did not last long."

Priyanka Gandhi described her "admiration" for the Tamil people for their intelligence and hard work. "I understand Tamil nationalism. But I don't agree with the method. As a human being, I don't believe in killing for anything," she said, referring to the Tamil Tigers.

With her grandmother and father both killed due to political reasons, Priyanka Gandhi revealed that she had one "moment of terror" for her mother's safety.

"I had this one moment of terror in 2004, when I peeked into her office and saw her surrounded by people exhorting her to be PM. I burst into my brother's room and said, she is going to die."

Now, she says that she is more sanguine and does not worry "day to day" about the security threats against her mother and brother.

On Tuesday, Priyanka Gandhi had said that India cannot forgive LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran for her father's assassination in 1991, but she personally does not hate him.

While campaigning for her brother Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi in his Amethi constituency, Priyanka Gandhi had told reporters: "Politically speaking, former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was killed and India can never forgive them (LTTE) for it. However, as a person I do not have any grudges against him (Prabhakaran) and do not hate him."