PUNE: Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday reiterated his 'love' for Prime Minister Narendra Modi but bemoaned that the latter has only anger towards him.

Gandhi was interacting with students in Pune.

"I love PM Modi. Genuinely, I have no hatred or anger towards the man, but he (Modi) has anger towards me," he said.

"I genuinely do not have anger towards him, he added.

There were brief chants of "Modi, Modi" soon after this comment, to which Gandhi responded," Its fine.. its OK".

This was not the first time Gandhi spoke of having 'affection' for Modi. In March, he recalled the day he had hugged Modi and said he could not hate him since love "is in the country's grain, every religion, and the Tamil people".

He made those remarks while interacting with students of a college in Chennai. When a student asked him why he chose to hug the prime minister, Gandhi had said he had watched a 'very angry' Modi in Parliament running down his party, his late father Rajiv Gandhi and mother Sonia.

After a fiery speech in Parliament in October last year, Gandhi had done something unprecedented: He had walked up to Modi and hugged him, leaving the PM bewildered for a moment.

Shortly after his interaction with students in Pune, Gandhi said he loves everybody, including those 'temporarily blinded by hatred'.

"Hatred is cowardice. I dont care if the entire world is full of hatred. I am not a coward. I will not hide behind hate and anger. I love all living beings, including those temporarily blinded by hatred," Gandhi tweeted.