India Wins Freedom - pg. 214

It must be placed on record that the man in India who first fell for Lord Mountbatten's idea was Sardar Patel. Till perhaps the very end Pakistan was for Jinnah a bargaining counter, but, in fighting for Pakistan, he had overreached himself. The situation within the Executive Council had so annoyed and irritated Sardar Patel that he now became a believer in partition. The Sardar's had been the responsibility for giving Finance to the Moslem League. He therefore resented his helplessness before Liaqat Ali more than anybody else. When Lord Mountbatten suggested that partition might offer a solution for the present difficulty, he found ready acceptance of the idea in Sardar Patel's mind.