Industrialist Rahul Bajaj is contesting the June 15 Rajya Sabha election against a Congress candidate but is leaving no chance to focus on his 'Congress connection.'
"My family has been associated with the Congress for the last 70 years and my grandfather Jamnalal Bajaj was like a son to Mahatma Gandhi," Bajaj said at a felicitation function in Mumbai on Saturday.
"I was named Rahul by Pandit Nehru. The late Indira Gandhi told my mother that she wanted to name her child Rahul," he said.
"Indira Gandhi told my mother that she (my mother) had stolen the name Rahul from her," he said.
"Indiraji named her son Rajiv. I named my son Rajiv. She named another son Sanjay. I named my second son Sanjiv," Bajaj said.
Bajaj said it was Jamnalal who brought Mahatma Gandhi from Sabarmati in Gujarat to Sevagram at Wardha in Maharashtra.
"Meetings of the Congress Working Committee later took place at Sevagram," Bajaj said.
In an apparent reference to the controversy over his stance on the reservations issue, Bajaj said, "Those who accuse me of being anti-backward classes would do well to remember that the Laxminarayan temple built by my family was one of the first in the country to allow 'dalits' to enter in it."