Zeenews Bureau
Ahmedabad: Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Thursday played down main opposition BJP’s assertions that there were serious differences between the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Home Minister Sardar Patel, who is believed to have banned the right-wing Hindu organisation RSS under pressure.
According to reports, in a letter addressed to the Sardar Patel Memorial Trust, Congress president has clarified that there were no differences between the two great leaders.
Sonia Gandhi’s clarification over the issue has come in response to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s scathing remarks that Jammu and Kashmir would have been a peaceful state had Sardar Vallab Bhai Patel been the Prime Minister after the country got Independence from British Rule.
Attacking the Grand Old party, Modi had blamed the Congress leadership for toeing the Nehruvian policy and not following the nationalist views of Sardar Patel.
Modi, while addressing a rally in Ahmedabad, said that Patel’s advice to change the country’s foreign policy regarding China was unheard by Nehru in 1950.
Leader of the Opposition LK Advani too had once stated that Sardar Patel banned RSS only at the behest of Pandit Nehru. Driving his point home, Advani had said, “One month later, Patel wrote a letter to Nehru saying that there is not an iota of evidence against RSS."
The Congress and the BJP have sparred over history several times in the past, but more so since expelled BJP leader Jaswant Singh’s book on Pakistan founder Md Ali Jinnah chose to question the long propounded theories regarding the causes of partition.
Jaswant Singh was later expelled from BJP for trying to eulogise Jinnah and denigrate Sardar Patel, who the saffron brigade worships as a man responsible for the unification of India.
The saffron party was earlier caught up in a controversy in 2005 due to L K Advani`s statement ``Jinnah is secular``, leading to his losing the post of party president.
