Goa would have been liberated much earlier before 1961 if Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had been alive, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on June 18.
He was addressing a state function at Margao town at the place where freedom fighter Ram Manohar Lohia had given a call for civil disobedience on June 18, 1946, to unite against the Portuguese.
June 18 is observed as Goa Revolution Day.