India at 60 poll: Mahatma Gandhi still rules Indian hearts

The campaign was spread across three platforms - an Opinion poll, SMS poll and a Web poll - and people were asked to mark their choices in the following nine categories:

• India's Greatest Icon
• India's Greatest Pride
• India's Greatest/Worst Shame
• One Event that Changed India
• India's Greatest Political Blot
• India's Greatest Sportsperson
• India's Greatest Film
• India's Greatest Song
• What Best Describes India Abroad

As the voting ended, it was clear that from the people on the street to the software geeks, the one person who rules the hearts and minds of Indians today, according to the NDTV poll, is Mahatma Gandhi.

This is not surprising considering that his ideals of non-violence have found expression in 21st century India's popular idiom - Gandhigiri.

Thus, the Mahatma beat Indian stalwarts like industrialist JRD Tata, Infosys chief mentor NR Narayana Murthy and actor Amitabh Bachchan by a huge margin.

In fact, the only one who comes anywhere near the Mahatma's aura is Mother Teresa.

Furthermore, in a sign of the old giving way to the young, voters passed over Jawaharlal Nehru in their preference for his daughter Indira Gandhi.