Sardar Patel disagreed with Maulana Azad's strategy for Punjab in the 1946 elections, but deferred to him. Some of his disagreement is recorded below.
I'm
quoting below excerpts from a few letters from "The Collected Works of
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel", Volume X, edited by P.N. Chopra.
On
December 21, 1945, Sardar Patel wrote to Pandit Gobind Ballabh Pant,
beginning "My Dear Pantji, I feel strongly that we have bungled in the
Punjab and I am afraid if we continue to act in the same way in the
matter of selection of candidates, we will suffer much."
Later
in the letter, Sardar Patel wrote, "There is another thing which
irritates me and pains me also. On the last day {of the Congress
Working Committee meeting in Calcutta, Dec 7 - 11, 1945} I went to see
Maulana and he told me that the help to be given to the Ahrars should be
doubled...."
On the same day, Sardar Patel wrote to
Maulana Azad, about sending him money, "...but I am afraid we are
wasting good money for nothing and the Congress reputation will in the
end suffer badly. I am enclosing herewith a Press cutting from which
you will see what type of candidates are put by the Ahrar Party in the
Punjab for whom they want our help. From this cutting you will see
that immediately the League candidates' nominations are declared
invalid, the Ahrar candidates, who remained on the scene and whose
nominations were declared valid, joined the Muslim League. It is very
sad that such candidates are chosen to oppose the League. In any case
it is very unwise that we should be mixed up with such a shady
transaction. I would still request you to reconsider the situation and
withhold the help......"
Sardar Patel continued: "I am
afraid we have mishandled the whole Punjab situation. We have to fight
the Akalis as there has been no settlement as was expected and we will
not get more than 5 or 6 seats after a good deal of expense which could
be easily avoided. Please excuse me for bringing these facts to your
notice but I have done so as I have been considerably oppressed by a
feeling of failure in duty at a critical juncture in one of the most
important provinces in these elections. I do not wish to blame anybody
but I do feel that if we continue to handle affairs in the same
fashion, we will suffer a serious defeat in spite of such huge
expenditure and good deal of time and energy being spent after it."
After
the elections, in a letter dated March 6, 1946, Sardar Patel wrote to
Maulana Azad regarding the decisions of the Congress Central Election
Board: "You are certainly entitled to claim a generous attitude from us
and I have done my best to do so, but you must also make allowance for
an honest difference of opinion. You cannot insist that your opinion is
the only correct one. In the Punjab we honestly held different
opinions but you have never recognised that there is scope for such a
difference of opinion in that matter and you have missed no opportunity
to remind us about it."
".....In the Punjab I have
differed strongly from you in the matter of the election campaign on
many points, including the question of financial help to be given to the
Congress Party. I was expected to help them only in the matter of
Muslim constituencies. In this they have lost all (along) the line and I
knew they were going to lose. They insisted on financial help being
given for non-Muslim constituencies and tried to put pressure on me
through you. I have agreed without hesitation to whatever you
suggested in this connection. They have avoided all responsibility but
as you were all working against heavy odds, I thought it my duty to
accept your suggestions without question. In the matter of selection of
candidates in the Punjab also we had differences but we have endorsed
everything that you have done without the slightest hesitation."
Sardar
Patel mentions a number of issues, and concludes "Perhaps it may be
that your approach to these questions is different from mine and
therefore it is difficult for me to understand or appreciate it. It
would therefore be better to relieve me from this embarrassing position
altogether, as early as possible."
Sho Kuwajima in his "Muslims, Nationalism and the Partition: 1946 Provincial Elections in India" notes:
"As
noted earlier, Mian Iftikhar-ud-din left the Congress in September
1945. {Elsewhere Kuwajima notes that "When Mian Iftikhar-ud-din joined
the Muslim League, Nehru wrote, "Iftikhar, middle-hearted man that he
is, thinks he can reform the Muslim League from within-- a foolish idea,
but he is foolish enough to do anything." It is true that in his
election campaign and in the post-independent history of Pakistan,
Iftikhar-ud-din fought his isolated struggle for reform of the political
system. He was one of the few League leaders who warned against
military-cum-bureaucratic rule in Pakistan. The Viewpoint made
its comment, 'if the art of politics lies in the ability to predict the
course of events, then Mian Iftikhar-ud-din was a politician without
peer in the land."} It came as a big blow to the Punjab Congress, and
particularly to the pro-Nehru faction to which Iftikhar-ud-din had
belonged. Even before Iftikhar-ud-din left the Congress, it was ridden
with factionalism, and Nehru and Patel were of the same view that it was
in a deplorable condition".
"Already in the beginning
of September 1945, Nehru wrote to Partap Singh Kairon (Chief Minister of
the Punjab 1956-64), Secretary of the Punjab Congress, saying that if
the public thought the Congressmen were split up into different parties,
quarreling among themselves, their enthusiasm for the Congress would
wane. Nehru admitted that the Punjab Congress had been in the past a
somewhat narrow organization without sufficient representation of
important elements, especially rural."
"Amidst the
election campaign in the Punjab, Patel regretted that the Punjab
Congress had been divided into groups and factions of a very bitter type
and hardly two men trusted each other. Patel was distressed to find
that even good Congressmen were not united in the Punjab. He
asked 'Can nothing be done to make Congress workers realize their sense
of responsibility at this critical period?""
"In such a
situation there was a serious rift between Azad and Patel. They had
different approaches to the election campaign and nominations of
candidates. Azad took a soft attitude towards the Ahrars and other
Nationalist Muslims, while Patel thought that the Congress should send
its candidates on the Congress tickets, not as Nationalist Muslims, and
did not lay his hope on the Ahrars who had some influence in the
Punjab. Relations between the two leaders were not smooth in their
approach to the Akalis either....."
".....It can be
said that this rift was basically caused by the absence of a mass
Congress base in the Punjab, particularly in its rural areas. The
Congress had to find its allies among the Nationalist Muslims or the
Akalis, to contain the Muslim League and the Communists."
