Mumbai: Who does not know Sardar Vallabh-bhai Patel of Gujarat, a deputy Prime Minister of India under Nehru, who with an iron hand united 550 princely states into a strong unified India, and who organised a military action against Hyderabad Nizam and his servant Qasim Rizvi (who fled to Pakistan) in 1948?

In two years that he was in power (1948-50), he ruled India as Home Minister, like Bismark of Germany. He was the nearest disciple to Gandhiji and died in Bombay (Mumbai) in 1950, after his task of unifying a free India was competed.

Soon the French and Portuguese colonialism also ended in India, when Nehru as PM was still alive.

Vallabh-bhai Patel gained the title of ‘Sardar’ spontaneously, the way Gandhiji became the ‘Mahatma’, Nehru the ‘Pandit’ and Indira, the ‘Durga’.

October 31 is the birth anniversary of this great son of India, even as it is the day of Death anniversary of Indira Gandhi (Ghandi), who succeeded Lal Bahadur Shastriji as PM (in a short period of 18 months).

Patel used to go for a walk every morning near his residence in New Delhi.

On Sunday, crores of Indians and all states remembered him once again, with Morarji and Modi, as his successors and CMs of Gujarat.