‘Distorians’ cannot erase the profound respect Indira Gandhi had for Vallabhbhai Patel: Jairam Ramesh

AICC General Secretary In-charge of Communication, Publicity and Media, Jairam Ramesh hailed Patel on his birth anniversary and Indira Gandhi on her death anniversary, saying both shaped subcontinental geography and history. File | Photo Credit: ANI

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Saturday (October 31, 2026) shared a rare photograph from 1947 featuring a young Indira Gandhi greeting Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who was then Deputy Prime Minister, and said “distorians” cannot erase the profound respect and admiration that Indira Gandhi had for the Congress stalwart.

Mr. Ramesh hailed Patel on his birth anniversary and Indira Gandhi on her death anniversary, saying both shaped subcontinental geography and history.

“Two Indians, both indomitable and resolute. Both shaped subcontinental geography and history,” he said on X.

“Today, we celebrate the 151st birth anniversary of a key architect of India’s freedom and who made India’s unity a living reality. He was also to inspire the White Revolution that came decades later,” Mr. Ramesh said of Patel.

“Today, we also mark the 42nd death anniversary of a most courageous and consequential personality who made a free India strong as a nuclear and space power and catalysed the Green Revolution during her lifetime,” he said of Indira Gandhi.

Sharing the picture in which Indira Gandhi is seen greeting Patel as Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru looks on, Mr. Ramesh said it was taken in early November 1947 in New Delhi, during a function hosted by the Prime Minister for delegates to the Asian Regional Conference of the International Labour Organisation.

The picture shows a 30-year-old Indira Gandhi greeting the 72-year-old Deputy Prime Minister, he said.

“Distorians cannot erase the profound respect and admiration that Indira Gandhi had for Sardar Patel, and she spoke from her heart on the occasion of his birth centenary. And Sardar Patel’s was the only statue of a living person that Nehru himself unveiled in Godhra on February 13, 1949,” Mr. Ramesh said.

Patel was born on October 31, 1875, in Nadiad, Gujarat. He passed away on December 15, 1950.

Following India’s independence in 1947, Patel became the country’s first Home Minister and was credited with the integration of over 560 princely states into the Indian Union.

Indira Gandhi, India’s first and only woman Prime Minister, was assassinated by her bodyguards in New Delhi on October 31, 1984. She was born on November 19, 1917.

Published - October 31, 2026 01:27 pm IST