Historical Figures

69. Sardar Patel was adamant on not giving the Home Ministry to the Muslim League

On 12 August 1946, the Viceroy sent an invitation to Congress President Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru to form the Interim Government and Nehru formed the Interim Government. Sardar Patel was made the Home Minister. Nehru left the post of Congress President and Acharya Kriplani was made the President of Congress. Nehru once again met Jinnah to persuade him and invited him to join the government.

Jinnah did not believe that the Congress would form the government alone, but now the government had been formed, from which it was foolish to stay away. That's why now Jinnah played a trick to snatch the Home Ministry from Sardar Patel. He told Nehru that if the Home Minister became of the Muslim League, the Muslim League would join the interim government.

When Patel came to know about this, he strongly opposed Jinnah's proposal. They did not want that the Muslim League, which has killed thousands of innocent people by playing Holi of blood on the streets, should give the Home Ministry to that Muslim League and mortgage the law and order of the country in their hands. Seeing Patel's opposition, Nehru rejected Jinnah's proposal. On this, Jinnah expressed his desire to join the government by contacting the Viceroy and took over five important departments including the Finance Ministry in the absence of the Home Ministry.

As soon as the Finance Ministry came in hand, Jinnah started the work of paralyzing the Government of India. The Muslim League members of the cabinet used to obstruct the work of the government at every step. He was in the government and still against the government.

In fact they were in a position to destroy every move of the government. The first budget presented by Liaquat Ali Khan was a new setback for the Congress. The declared policy of the Congress was that economic inequalities should be eliminated and capitalist society should be replaced by socialist method. Jawaharlal Nehru had also spoken many times on the profits made by the merchants and industrialists during the war period. It was also known to all that a large part of this income was hidden from income tax.

There was a need to take strict steps by the Government of India for the recovery of income tax. In the budget presented by Liaquat Ali, he imposed such heavy taxes on industry and trade that industrialists and businessmen began to tremble. This would have caused permanent damage not only to the Congress but to the country's trade and industry.

It can be guessed that what would have been the plight of India if Sardar Patel had handed over the Home Ministry to the Muslim League with such dangerous intentions!