Amit Shah Pays Tribute to Sardar Patel: ‘In Just 1,218 Days, He Forged a United India’

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday said Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel accomplished the seemingly impossible task of uniting India in just 1,218 days after Independence, defying predictions that the country would fall apart.

Speaking at the Run for Unity event at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium in New Delhi, Shah paid tribute to Patel’s role in bringing princely states together and shaping the country’s political and geographical boundaries.

“At the time we attained independence, political pundits across the globe predicted that India would fall apart. Yet, in the 1,218 days following independence, Sardar Patel accomplished what everyone had deemed impossible,” Shah said.

“It was a feat that even a group of leaders working together might not have managed in an entire lifetime; in just 1,218 days, Sardar Patel forged a united India.”

Shah said the country Patel had envisioned and helped build now stood before the world with pride. He described Patel as a leader whose work transformed India’s history and shaped its geography.

Comparing the integration of princely states to weaving beads onto a single string, Shah said Patel helped bind the country into a unified whole. His contribution, the home minister added, extended across India’s geographical, political and cultural integration.

Shah also flagged off the Run for Unity to mark Rashtriya Ekta Diwas, observed annually on October 31. The occasion commemorates Patel’s contribution to India’s political integration and nation-building.

Earlier, President Droupadi Murmu, Vice President CP Radhakrishnan, Shah and Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri paid floral tributes to Patel on his 151st birth anniversary.

The Union government introduced National Unity Day in 2014. Shah said the annual observance, which began after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office, recognised Patel’s contribution to building a united country following Independence.

Meanwhile, Modi was on a two-day visit to Gujarat. On Friday, he visited the Valley of Flowers near the Statue of Unity at Ekta Nagar and watched a theatrical presentation of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Anand Math.

With inputs from ANI