Vadodara: Defence minister Rajnath Singh claimed on Tuesday that Jawaharlal Nehru wanted to build the Babri masjid with public funds, but was dissuaded from doing so by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

Nehru had also allegedly suggested that funds collected by common people for a memorial for Patel after his death be utilised for constructing wells and roads, Singh said while addressing a gathering at Sadhli village near Vadodara.

He was there as part of a ‘Unity March’ to commemorate Sardar Patel’s 150th birth anniversary.

Calling Patel a true liberal and secular person who never believed in appeasement, the defence minister said: “Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru wanted to build the Babri Masjid (in Ayodhya) using public funds. If anyone opposed this proposal, it was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, born to a Gujarati mother. He didn’t allow the Babri Masjid to be built using public funds,” said Singh.
Nehru is then said to have raised the issue of how the Somnath Temple in Gujarat was being restored. According to Singh, Patel had then clarified that the temple was a different matter because the Rs 30 lakh required for its facelift had been donated by common people.

“A trust had been established, and not a single paisa of the government’s money had been spent on this (Somnath temple) work. Similarly, the government didn’t give a single rupee to construct the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. The entire cost was borne by the people of the country. This is called real secularism,” the BJP veteran said.

Singh said Sardar Patel could have become the Prime Minister, but he never hankered for any position in his career. Despite ideological differences with Nehru, he worked with him because he had given a promise to Mahatma Gandhi, he said.

Without taking names, the defence minister said that some political forces wanted to erase Patel’s legacy. “It was PM Narendra Modi whose crucial role re-established Patel as a shining star in the annals of history”.

“After Patel died, common people collected funds to build a memorial for him, but when this information reached Nehruji, he said Sardar Patel was a leader of farmers, so this money should be spent on building wells and roads in the villages. What a farce! Building wells and roads is the government’s responsibility. The suggestion of using memorial funds for that was absurd,” Singh said.

According to him, this indicated that the government of that time wanted to hide and suppress Patel’s great legacy at all costs.

“Nehruji awarded himself the Bharat Ratna, but why was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel not honoured with the Bharat Ratna at that time? PM Narendra Modiji decided to honour Sardar Patel appropriately by building the Statue of Unity. This is truly commendable work by our PM,” Singh said.

Dismissing arguments that Patel was too old to become the Prime Minister, he referred to the Kashmir issue and said if points raised by Patel had been heeded at the time of Kashmir’s merger, India wouldn’t have had to grapple with the problem for so long.