Rajiv Gandhi shakes hands with his supporters during his visit to Aizawl. (File picture)

Aizawl/Silchar, Nov. 21: Like father, like son. Twenty-two years ago, Rahul Gandhi had accompanied his father to Mizoram as a shy teenager who got his first glimpse of the Northeast. Today, Rahul stepped into his father’s shoes in a virtual replication of that memorable visit in 1986.

Like former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi — who had landed in Mizoram in jeans and T-shirt — Rahul too discarded his trademark white kurta-pyjamas for a bottle green T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans.

Rahul also sent many of those who had seen the former Prime Minister from close quarters on a walk down memory lane as he shook hands with them outside Vanapa Hall in the Mizoram capital, where he addressed a meeting.

Rahul’s first visit had come soon after the landmark peace accord between the Centre and the Mizo National Front in June 1986. His mother Sonia and sister Priyanka had also come on the tour. Not surprisingly, Rahul remembered the first trip with a tinge of nostalgia: “I was introduced to this part of the country which I had not seen. I was only 16 years old then.”

The festive spirit reached a crescendo as Rahul, with no trace of any travel weariness, started throwing flowers at the audience and repeatedly waved at them.

He admitted that during his maiden visit to Mizoram he was just an adolescent but has always cherished those memories. He spoke for only a few minutes in English which was translated into Mizo.

Though Rahul did not mention it, the most memorable moment of the earlier visit had taken place on the way to the border town of Champai, when Rajiv Gandhi had stopped the Maruti-Gypsy he was driving to pluck a bunch of wildflowers and offered them to Sonia.

That picture of Rajiv twirling that bunch of flowers provided the perfect photo opportunity and The Telegraph was one of the few dailies to print this picture.

It was a rare moment of a man who would be Prime Minister, establishing Rajiv Gandhi as a politician with a difference.

Rahul and his sister Priyanka were starry-eyed visitors then, savouring the natural beauty during the drive along the hilly road.

Rajiv Gandhi at that time was a popular man in the state as he was hailed as the architect of the Mizo peace accord, marking the end of the bloodied days of MNF insurgency which ran for two decades after it was kicked off in 1966.

Both Rajiv and Rahul were wearing the Mizo hand-crafted cap made from chiselled reeds of bamboo, presented as a token of Mizo gratitude.This time too, Rahul was presented a hand-woven Mizo jacket which he wore over his T-shirt. At one point, he was also presented a colourful Mizo shawl.