Sardar Patel would have saved Kashmir: Amit Shah

The BJP President said that instead of Jawaharlal Nehru should have been left to handle Kashmir issue

BJP national president Amit Shah while extolling the pivotal role played by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in ensuring the merger of the princely states in post-Independence India, said that had Patel handled the Kashmir issue, part of that state would not have been held by Pakistan.

Speaking after laying the foundation stone for Sardar Patel's statue and a martyr memorial at Gorta village in Bidar district of north Karnataka on Wednesday, Shah said, Patel, instead of Jawaharlal Nehru should have been left to handle Kashmir issue. Had Patel handled it, Article 370 would not have existed, he asserted.

He said, Patel was responsible for keeping the federal states together in India after Independence and that it was he who was responsible for liberating Hyderabad and Hyderabad-Karnatak region from Nizam's rule.

The function was organised to mark the Hyderabad-Karnataka Liberation Day at Gorta which is known as the Jalianwala Baugh of South India. It was in this village that the forces of the Hyderabad Nizam massacred over 200 people on May 9, 1948 for hoisting the National Flag. Gorta was then under Nizam's rule and he was opposed to his province being part of India. However, under the "Operation Polo" in 1948, the state of Hyderabad became part of India.

Heaping praise on Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Amit Shah said, Patel was a simple man with a firm determination to do something concrete for the nation and was rightly called the 'Steel Man'.

"Despite being a known barrister in Gujarat, Patel did not make assets. When he died, his bank balance was only Rs 150. He lived a very simple life," Shah said. He also paid homage to the martyrs of Gorta massacre.