A Gujarati newspaper, which had published a story on Narendra Modi claiming that Pt Jawaharlal Nehru had not attended Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's funeral, admitted on Tuesday that the state chief minister was misquoted.
Soon after the clarification, Modi tweeted, "Divya Bhaskar has clarified on a statement about Sardar Patel's funeral wrongly attributed to me. I thank them for it."
On 27 October, Hindi newspaper Dainik Bhaskar had published a lead story, based on an interview given to Divya Bhaskar, saying 'Sardar Patel ki Antim Yatra mein bhi nahi gae the Nehru: Modi (Nehru did not even go for Sardar Patel's funeral: Modi)'.
Soon after, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh demanded a public apology from Modi for spreading false facts about India's first Prime Minister and Congress leader Nehru.
Singh also quoted lines from the biography of another former prime minister, Morarji Desai, on Sardar Patel's funeral. "Modi in Dainik Bhaskar- Nehru didn't attend Sardar Patel's funeral. Pl see Morarji Desai's Biography Vol 1 page 271," Singh had tweeted.
"The funeral procession was taken out in the afternoon. Both the President of India, Rajendra Babu, and the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru' attended," the biography said.
He also shared two videos of the procession on his Youtube channel and blog post where Nehru could be seen attending Sardar Patel's funeral.
"Link for Modi's lie about Nehruji not attending Sardar Patel funeral -Exposed http://www.digvijayasingh.in/sardar-patel-funeral.html. What a great LIER is this Modi !" he had tweeted.
Lately, Modi has been boasting in his rallies about building the world's tallest statue of Sardar Patel in Gujarat.
The proposed statue will be 182 metres in height, which is twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty in the US. The statue would be placed in the middle of a water body, more than 200 kilometres south of Ahmedabad, in Narmada river, near the Saradar Sarovar dam at Kevadia.
The traditional groundbreaking ceremony (or bhoomipujan) for the statue will be held on 31 October, for which NDA prime ministerial candidate Modi sent a special invite to Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh.
Check out the video of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Nehru can be seen at 3.31 and 3.38 minute.
