If statues could talk, the tallest in the world might have offered PM Modi a lesson in secularism

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel would have asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to revisit his ideas on secularism and a secular state articulated in the Constituent Assembly, writes S.N. Sahu.

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PRIME Minister Narendra Modi, while speaking yesterday on the occasion of the National Unity Day marking the birthday of independent India's first home minister 'Sardar' Vallabhbhai Patel, made a preposterous claim that "one nation, one election" and a "secular civil code" would be brought in following Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's spirit of unity.

It may be mentioned that the birthday of Sardar Patel, falling on October 31, has been celebrated by the Modi regime as National Unity Day from 2014 onwards. This year's celebrations mark the beginning of the 150th birth anniversary of Patel who after the independence of India and the division of the subcontinent on the basis of religion completed the daunting task of unifying India by integrating more than five hundred Princely States into the Indian Union peacefully and without bloodshed.

Patel never talked of 'one nation, one election'

Patel, universally acclaimed for unifying India in the face of the dismemberment of our country along religious lines, never conceived of the idea of 'one nation one election' and even a secular civil code for the purpose of sustaining the unity of people professing diverse faiths and speaking numerous languages.