According to H.V. Hodson, when Nehru had submitted the list of independent India’s first cabinet to the Viceroy Lord Mountbatten in August 1947, Patel’s name was missing from it. It was Mountbatten who, on V.P. Menon’s prompting, made Nehru include Patel in the cabinet. V.P. Menon argued that an open clash in the Congress Party Working Committee between the two could result in Nehru’s defeat. Nehru’s main misgiving about Patel was that he would oppose a socialistic economic policy. Moreover, Nehru wanted to be all in all. S. Gopal calls this ‘an absurd story’.
