Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, who had always been considered a great friend and confidante of Nehru issued a statement on 26th April 1946 to elect Nehru as Congress President, wrote in his autobiography published posthumously in 1959: “After weighing the pros and cons I came to the conclusion that the election of Sardar Patel would not be desirable in the existing circumstances. Taking all facts into consideration it seemed to me that Jawaharlal should be the new President…….. I acted according to my best judgment but the way things have shaped since then has made to realize that this was perhaps the greatest blunder of my political life. I have regretted no action of mine so much as the decision to withdraw from the Presidentship of the Congress at this junction. It was a mistake which I can describe in Gandhi’s words as the one of Himalayan dimension. My second mistake was that when I decided not to stand myself, I did not support Sardar Patel. We differed on many issues but I am convinced that if he had succeeded me as Congress President he would have seen that the Cabinet Mission Plan was successfully implemented. He would never have committed the mistake of Jawaharlal which gave Mr. Jinnah an opportunity of sabotaging the Plan. I can never forgive myself when I think if I had not committed these mistakes, perhaps the history of the last ten years would have been different”. ******************(another excerpt from a different context:)************* One of the most sympathetic biographers of Nehru who has not hesitated to distort even the well known facts in favour of Nehru, has to say on the issue of Nehru’s elevation to the Presidentship of the Congress and the Prime Ministership of free India: “In accordance with the time-honoured practice of rotating the Presidency, Patel was in line for the post. Fifteen years had been elapsed since he presided over the Karachi session whereas Nehru had presided at Lucknow and Ferozpur in 1936 and 1937. Moreover, Patel was the overwhelming choice of the Provincial Congress Committee…. Nehru’s election was due to Gandhi’s intervention. Patel was persuaded to step down. One month after the election the Viceroy invited Nehru, as Congress President, to form an interim Government. If Gandhi had not intervened, Patel would have been the first de facto Premier of India, in 1946-47. Gandhi certainly knew of the impending creation of Interim Government. One must infer, therefore, that he preferred Nehru as the first Prime Minster of free India. The Sardar was ‘robbed of the price’ and it rankled deeply. He was then seventy-one while Nehru was fifty-six; in traditionalist Indian terms the elder statesman should have been the first premier and Patel knew that because of his advanced age another opportunity would probably not arise. There is striking parallel with Congress election of 1929; on both occasions Gandhi threw his weight behind Nehru at the expense of Patel”.
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 11:23:53 +0000
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