Jairam Ramesh Hands Maniben Patel’s Diary To Rajnath Singh Over Babri Claim

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh confronted Defence Minister Rajnath Singh outside Parliament on Thursday, handing him copies of Vallabhbhai Patel’s daughter Maniben Patel’s original Gujarati diary entries to refute Singh’s recent claim that Jawaharlal Nehru wanted to build the Babri masjid with public funds.

Ramesh reached Singh as he stepped out of his car at the Makar Dwar and told him he had brought the diary pages in Gujarati. According to PTI, Singh responded that the BJP already had the English version. While passing him the Gujarati excerpts along with a Hindi translation, Ramesh urged him to read them. PTI reported that Singh, who was walking towards the entrance, remarked that he did not know Gujarati.

Ramesh said there was no reference in the diary to the claim made by Singh at a public event in Gujarat’s Vadodara district last week. The Congress, citing the same diary entries earlier, had also demanded that the defence minister apologise for what it described as “falsehoods”. Reported PTI, Ramesh had previously argued that Singh was attempting to strengthen his standing with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Congress leader pointed to the book Samarpit Padchhayo Sardarno by C.A. R.S. Patel ‘Aaresh’, published by the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Memorial Society in 2025, where the Gujarati entries appear on pages 212–213. Sharing screenshots on X, he said there was a marked gap between the text and what “Rajnath Singh ji and his fellow ‘distorians’ are propagating”.

Singh had told a gathering in Sadhli village that Nehru intended to construct the Babri masjid using public money but that Sardar Patel blocked the move. The BJP later cited a different book attributed to Maniben Patel to defend Singh’s comments. At a press conference, BJP Rajya Sabha MP and national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said the source of Singh’s statement was Inside Story of Sardar Patel, Diary of Maniben Patel. Trivedi claimed that on Page 24, the book records Nehru raising the issue of the Babri mosque, and Patel responding that the government could not fund the building of a mosque.

The Congress dismissed Singh’s version as a “WhatsApp university story” and insisted the original diary notes contradicted it. The party said the defence minister should avoid following “Prime Minister Modi’s path” on such claims.

(With inputs from PTI)