Union Home Minister Amit Shah paid tribute to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his birth anniversary on Saturday and extended National Unity Day greetings to the country. Shah and Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta flagged off the Run for Unity at Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium in Delhi to mark the occasion.
Speaking at the event, Shah described Patel's contribution to the country's unification as historic. He said that since Narendra Modi became prime minister, Patel's birth anniversary has been observed as National Unity Day. Patel, he said, changed not just the country's history but the structure of its geography, threading many states and princely states into one garland and giving undivided India its map.
The 1,218-day task everyone called impossible
Shah recalled that at the time of independence, political commentators around the world said India would break apart. Yet in the 1,218 days after independence, Patel achieved what everyone thought impossible, a task Shah said many leaders working together could not finish in a lifetime. The India Patel imagined and built, he said, now stands before the world with pride.
The merger itself was an enormous challenge. At independence, India had more than 560 princely states, and bringing them into the Indian Union fell to Patel working with V. P. Menon, then secretary of the States Department. The Instrument of Accession, the merger document, became the key instrument of that process.
A drug-free India by 2029
Shah also spoke about the fight against drugs. He said the country moved past left-wing extremism by 31 March this year and is now moving towards becoming drug-free. On Patel's birth anniversary, he appealed to people across the country to work towards the goal of making India fully drug-free by 31 December 2029, describing a drug-free India as the first stage of the prime minister's vision of a developed India.
Why Patel is called the Iron Man
Patel was born on 31 October 1875 in Nadiad, Gujarat. After leading the Bardoli Satyagraha in 1928, he came to be called Sardar. He became independent India's first deputy prime minister and home minister, and his role in unification earned him the title of India's Iron Man. He died on 15 December 1950.
Shah also used the occasion to target the Congress, saying the party did not give Patel the honour his work deserved for many years and tried to make people forget him. He said Modi, as Gujarat chief minister, built the Statue of Unity, a towering statue that presented Patel's personality before the whole country.
