New Delhi: New Delhi: There seems no end to the skirmish between the Congress and the BJP over Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's legacy. Union Minister Manish Tewari on Thursday took on veteran BJP leader LK Advani for writing a blog about former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru calling Patel a "total communalist" at a Cabinet meeting. Tewari claimed that the BJP leader had got the facts wrong.
He tweeted saying that the MKK Nair was born in 1930 and joined the IAS in 1950 while the discussion at Nehru's Cabinet meeting was about an event in 1948.
"The facts don't add up and even if another Nair was part of the IAS, it's questionable whether he would be privy to cabinet discussions," he said.
In his blog, Advani had quoted from former bureaucrat MKK Nair's book - 'The Story of an Era Told without Ill Will', which deals with the squabble between Nehru and Patel in a Cabinet meeting.
Advani had last week said that Nehru called Patel a "total communalist" when the latter suggested that army be sent to take over a defiant Hyderabad after Independence.
"At a cabinet meeting, Patel had described these things and demanded that army be sent to end the terror-regime in Hyderabad. Nehru who usually spoke calmly, peacefully and with international etiquette, spoke losing his composure, 'You are a total communalist. I will never accept your recommendation... "Patel remained unperturbed but left the room with his papers," Advani said.
The BJP has of late been trying to appropriate Sardar Patel as a leader close to the Hindutva ideology. On Patel's 138th anniversary on October 31, Advani had heaped praise on India's first home minister at the inauguration of a project to build a 182 metre tall statue- the tallest in the world- of the leader.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who is behind this endeavour, said India needs Patel's secularism which united people and not the "votebank secularism" that is being practiced. Both Advani and Modi have sought to fashion themselves as inheritors of Patel's legacy. BJP has also alleged that Sardar Patel contribution was never hailed by the Congress and that it only eulogised the Nehru-Gandhi family.
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