Cong counters BJP’s ‘Nehru-Babri’ claim with diary excerpts of Patel’s daughter

Ramesh approached Singh the moment he stepped out of his car at the Makarp Dwar entrance. He told the minister that he had “especially brought” the original diary pages in Gujarati. Singh responded, “we have it in English”, after which Ramesh placed before him both the Gujarati extracts, as published in a book, and their Hindi translation. Singh, heading inside Parliament, said he did not know Gujarati.

According to Ramesh, there is “no mention” in these diary entries of the allegation made by Singh. The Congress had last week circulated the same pages to rebut the claim and demanded that the defence minister apologise for spreading what it called “falsehoods”. Ramesh had earlier alleged that Singh was doing so to improve his “equation” with the Prime Minister.

He also posted the extracts on X, writing: “Here is Maniben's original diary entry in Gujarati on pages 212-213 in the book Samarpit Padchhayo Sardarno' by CA R S Patel 'Aaresh', published by Sardar Patel Vallabhbhai Patel Memorial Society, 2025,” alongside screenshots from the publication. He said there was a “huge difference” between what was recorded in the diary and what “Rajnath Singh ji and his fellow ‘distorians’ are propagating”.

The political row began after Singh, addressing an event in Sadhli village in Gujarat’s Vadodara district last Tuesday, said Nehru wanted to build the Babri masjid using government money, but Sardar Patel had blocked the move. The BJP later cited a book based on Maniben Patel’s writings to reinforce Singh’s position, adding that Nehru had also expressed feeling “repelled” by certain temples in south India despite their architectural beauty.

“The source of what Rajnath Singh said is the ‘Inside Story of Sardar Patel, Diary of Maniben Patel’, ” said Rajya Sabha MP and national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi at a press conference at the BJP headquarters He claimed that page 24 of the book states that Nehru raised the issue of the Babri mosque, but Patel made it clear that the government could not allocate any public funds for the construction of a mosque.