The prime minister, dressed in a white kurta-churidar with a red ‘angvastra' draped across his shoulder, said that a country which forgets its history can never create history and that “we should not divide historical legacy on the basis of ideologies”.
Modi referred to Patel's role in integrating princely states after India gained independence.
He said Mahatma Gandhi seems incomplete without Sardar Patel and they formed an “unbreakable pair”.
He also referred to late prime minister Indira Gandhi's assassination on this day in 1984, and in reference to the anti-Sikh riots that followed, he said the incident 30 years ago “had hurt the unity of the country” for which Patel had striven.
