L K Advani again rakes up Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel differences

NEW DELHI: Veteran BJP leader LK Advani has written a third blog to show India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in poor light, vis-à-vis his deputy Sardar Patel, a theme highlighted by his party’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

“In a democratic set-up, Cabinet sanction was essential for police action. Patel faced a formidable task in overcoming Nehru's reluctance. At one of the meetings of the defence committee, of which Nehru was the chairman, there was so much bitterness that Sardar Patel walked out,” Advani quoted from ‘India's Bismarck: Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’.

Patel’s biographer Rajmohan Gandhi had said that Patel and Nehru had a remarkable partnership at India's helm during the first 3 years of Independence, ending only when Patel died in December 1950.

“Their partnership, necessary and fruitful for the country, was a solemn commitment that each made to the other,” he had written in ET recently.