Amit Shah Flags Off Run for Unity, Sets 2029 Drug-Free Goal

Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah flagged off the Run for Unity in New Delhi on 31 October 2026, the day kept as Rashtriya Ekta Diwas for the 151st birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. He also administered the Unity Pledge to citizens at the event.

Who was there

• Taranjit Singh Sandhu, Lieutenant Governor of Delhi.
• Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.
• Rekha Gupta, Chief Minister of Delhi.
• Nityanand Rai and Bandi Sanjay Kumar, Ministers of State for Home Affairs.

The deadline for a drug-free India

The Home Minister said the government has fixed 31 December 2029 as the date by which the country is to be rid of drugs altogether, and called a drug-free India the first stage of a developed India. He said that on 31 March this year the country was freed of Naxalism and has since moved towards becoming a drug-free nation. Ending the drug trade, he said, would matter most of all to the young and to the country's future. He placed it beside other steps of recent years: the removal of Article 370, which tied Kashmir to India for good, the end of Naxalism, and one tax system for the whole country.

What he said about Sardar Patel

Shah said Patel changed not only the history of India but its geography as well, because the hard task of joining hundreds of princely states and estates into one chain gave the country the map it has today. He said that at independence the world expected India to break apart, yet in only 1,218 days Patel built a single undivided country out of it. He described the linguistic, cultural and traditional variety of India as its strength and not its weakness, and said that over the past 80 years dialogue, trust and an inclusive outlook have built a shared national identity.

Somnath and the Statue of Unity

The Minister recalled that the rebuilding of the Somnath temple was itself conceived by Sardar Patel, and called it an experience of civilisational and national revival. He said the Statue of Unity, conceived and founded by Narendra Modi while he was Chief Minister of Gujarat, placed Patel's towering personality before the whole country. From that same place, he said, the Prime Minister would take the salute of a parade of police forces drawn from across India.