Priyanka Gandhi Vadra shared a photo with Nelson Mandela.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra tweeted a tribute to Nelson Mandela on Thursday, the 101st birth anniversary of the anti-apartheid icon.

"The world misses men like #NelsonMandela more than ever today. His life was a testament to truth, love and freedom. To me, he was Uncle Nelson (who told me I ought to be in politics long before anyone else did!). He will always be my insipration and my guide," she posted along with a photo of the South African leader holding her son.

"Laughing heartily at my son's fancy topi in 2001," she added in a follow up tweet.

The world misses men like #NelsonMandela more than ever today. His life was a testament to truth, love and freedom.



To me, he was Uncle Nelson (who told me I ought to be in politics long before anyone else did!). He will always be my insipration and my guide. pic.twitter.com/JaPeHkT69g — Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) July 18, 2019

July 18 is observed as Nelson Mandela Day the world over.

Nelson Mandela had guided South Africa from the shackles of apartheid to multi-racial democracy, as an icon of peace and reconciliation who came to embody the struggle for justice around the world.

He spent 27 years in jail for his battle against white-supremacist rule, before being elected in South Africa's first all-race elections in 1994 and reconciling with his former oppressors.

With a deep connection to India through his following of Gandhian principles, Nelson Mandela had said on a visit in 1995 in Ahmedabad, "I could never reach the standard of morality, simplicity and love for the poor set by the Mahatma...While Gandhi was a human without weaknesses, I am a man of many weaknesses."

India had observed a five-day state mourning as a mark of respect for Nelson Mandela, the only the second non-Indian to be given the Bharat Ratna - the country's highest civilian award, when he died in 2013.