UPA didn’t revive NDA’s Sardar Patel memorial plan

NEW DELHI: While in power the NDA government mooted the plan for a Sardar Patel Memorial on the lines of Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML). After initial enthusiasm of setting up a taskforce under then Rajya Sabha member T N Chaturvedi , the plan could never take off. In the last decade, UPA never even thought of reviving the idea.

In early 2002 when the idea was first mooted, Narendra Modi had just replaced Kesubhai Patel as Gujarat chief minister. He was even made a member of the taskforce that consisted of former ICSSR director M L Sondhi, historian P N Chopra, journalist Achutanand Mishra, Jitendra Desai of Ahmedabad-based Sardar Patel Society and RSS weekly ‘Panchjanya’ columnist Devendra Swarup.

Chaturvedi told TOI, “I gave the report in August 2002, but neither NDA nor UPA bothered about it. I wanted the memorial to be housed either in Delhi or Ahmedabad so that it could be accessed easily by scholars.”

Chaturvedi says Modi’s office sought the copy of the report later, but nothing came out of it. “I was particular that the Patel Memorial does not get into areas that the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library is looking into,” he says.

Considering Patel’s work as home minister the focus of memorial was to be national integration, administrative reforms, liberal economics, rural development, national security and federalism the memorial was to be housed at 1, Aurangzeb Road where Patel lived as home minister. The house was given out to him by Banwari Lal, Patel’s good friend. But after Patel’s death in 1950 the house was taken over by the government and after a prolonged litigation the family got the bungalow back in 1963.

In 2002 when the idea of memorial was mooted, Banwari Lal’s grandson Vipul Khandelwal, who owns the property now, had demanded Rs 100 crore from the government . Sonia Gandhi, then leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, had also objected, stating that the proposed Patel Memorial should not become a single party initiative but should involve all parties in its establishment and management. But in 2004, when Congress-led UPA came to power Gandhi forgot Patel and the memorial.