Jairam Ramesh shares Maniben Patel’s book pages with Rajnath Singh amid Nehru-Babri row

New Delhi: Congress MP Jairam Ramesh on Thursday handed over a set of pages from the book ‘Inside Story of Sardar Patel: The Diary of Maniben Patel’ to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh as he arrived in Parliament for the day’s proceedings.

Ramesh presented the Gujarati translation of the transcripts, remarking, “Sir, I have brought you a Gujarati translation of Maniben Patel’s diary, especially for you. Please do read it.”

Singh, responding with a light smile, said, “I don’t know Gujarati”, while taking the pages with him.

The exchange comes just days after the Congress party, on December 6, released excerpts from the book by Vallabhbhai Patel’s daughter, Maniben Patel, to counter Singh’s statement that Jawaharlal Nehru had wanted to build the Babri Masjid with public funds. The party has demanded that the Defence Minister apologise for what it calls “falsehoods”.

Jairam Ramesh, sharing screenshots of the original Gujarati pages on X, accused Singh of distorting historical facts.

He added that there was a “huge difference” between the diary entry and what “fellow distorians” were claiming.

Singh had recently stated at a gathering in Sadhli village in Gujarat’s Vadodara district that Nehru intended to construct the Babri Masjid using public money, but was prevented from doing so by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The BJP, backing Singh’s remarks, cited the same book authored by Maniben Patel to argue that Nehru also felt “repelled” by some temples in South India despite their structural beauty.

BJP Rajya Sabha MP and national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, addressing the media at the party headquarters, had said the source of Singh’s comments was indeed ‘Inside Story of Sardar Patel: Diary of Maniben Patel’.

He claimed that Page 24 of the book notes that Nehru had raised the issue of the Babri mosque, but Patel made it clear that the government could not allocate funds for constructing a mosque.

IANS