Role in Partition

In the 1946 election for the Congress Presidency, Patel was nominated as the candidate for the elections. However, he refused the position on the advice of Gandhi, which was eventually taken over by Jawaharlal Nehru. The election was important in terms of the fact that the elected President would lead free Indias first Government.Patel was free-Indias first Home Minister and Minister of Information and Broadcasting. He was also the first of the Congress leaders to support the partition of India, as a solution to curb the rising communal violence and Muslim separatist movement, led by Mohammad Jinnah.He managed to lobby for the partition successfully, by making Nehru, Gandhi and other Congress leaders accept the proposal. He represented India on the Partition Council, and oversaw the division of public assets. Though patel argued to have agreed for the partition to cease communal violence, little did he anticipate the bloody violence and population transfer that would take place as a result of it.