Author: Prerana Thakurdesai in Jalgaon with
Priya Sahgal in Delhi with Satarupa Bhattacharjya
Publication: India Today
Dated: July 9, 2007
Introduction: Scandals And Mud-Slinging Have
Turned The Presidential Polls Into An Unseemly Affair. Ghosts From A Dubious
Past Have Come To Haunt The UPA Candidate, Putting Both The Congress And Its
Allies In A Tight Spot
It is the stuff sci-fi writers scour around
for to script their futuristic mindbenders. To conventional political credentials,
India's first woman-who-might-be president has added a touch of the paranormal.
A la Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings, Pratibha Patil apparently conducted
a seance with the dead in order to discover her future. Last week she revealed
that she had a divine premonition "of greater responsibility" coming
her way during a recent visit to the Brahmakumari University at Mount Abu.
Apparently, the spirit of Lekh Raj, the founder of the Brahmakumari sect,
also known as Baba, entered the body of its current spiritual head, Hriday
"Dadiji" Mohini, and informed Patil about the impending change.
Reactions to the connectivity across the worlds, in a nation billed as the
next tech giant with over 500 million youth under the age of 25, ranged from
sheer embarrassment to a fit of giggles to pure shock. Patil's contrast with
the incumbent President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who talks routinely about conquering
space and igniting minds, couldn't be more striking. But India should have
been prepared as this was not the first peep into Patil's mind.
Soon after her nomination, she described the
system of purdah as one introduced to protect Indian women from Mughal invaders.
The revelation triggered nation-wide protests, demands for an apology by Muslim
ulemas and a stinging rebuttal from firebrand leftist Subhashini Ali who asked
Patil to "get her history right". Her early utterances have triggered
amusement, anger and mortification. The UPA allies are squirming and the Left
is red-faced. But it can hardly protest, having shot down nominee after nominee
for various reasons. After turning down Home Minister Shivraj Patil for his
devoted genuflection of Puttaparthi Sathya Sai Baba, it was in a quandary
about the other Patil's occult practices. CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash
Karat told scribes badgering him for his response to Patil's extra-sensory
powers: "You should ask Sonia Gandhi as she is the Congress candidate."
The UPA paraded seven to nine candidates for
the top job. When the Left had made its objections to Shivraj Patil known,
Sonia Gandhi put into action her Plan B-proposing a woman as President. She
had shortlisted Mohsina Kidwai, Nirmala Deshpande and Pratibha. Before she
left for Amsterdam in June, Sonia had asked a party strategist to look into
the credentials of all three. Deshpande may be a Gandhian, but the party was
looking for double-barrelled Nehru-Gandhian credentials, like Kidwai possessed.
Indira Gandhi always had a soft spot for Kidwai, but she was rejected as the
current President was also a Muslim. So that left only Pratibha. A family
loyalist, few knew that she managed the kitchen in Indira Gandhi's house when
her son Sanjay had died. She had the right caste (Leva Patil) card too. Patil
also enjoyed top-of-the-mind recall after meeting Sonia on May 30 as Governor
of Rajasthan to discuss the Gurjar agitations. But Sonia kept her preference
to herself.
She revealed her choice to Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh only on June 14. By then, the Left had dug in its heels on
all the choices. Karat and CPI General Secretary A.B. Bardhan, among the first
to arrive along with NCP chief Sharad Pawar and RID'S Lalu Prasad Yadav, indulged
in pleasant banter on the Left not sparing a comrade for the post. Banter
and ribbing over, Sonia decided to pop the name. Karat said "they didn't
know enough about her" to react immediately but Bardhan was instantly
sold on the idea as he knew her and described her as "an outstanding
choice". Before you could say Pratibha Devisinh Patil, there was all-round
applause and she was declared the nominee. Sonia said it would be a matter
of great pride for the country to have a woman President in the 60th year
of Independence. In less than two weeks, pride has turned into discomfiture
and panic.
To start with, Patil had everything going for her-history, geography and caste.
Her advocate father Narayan Rao Patil got her to join politics following a
fiery speech at the AkhiI Bharatiya Rajput Parishad in 1960. By 1962, the
practising advocate, who was also a table tennis champion, won her first Assembly
election and has since never lost any election. In 1965, she married Devisinh
Shekhawat, a Rajput from Amravati, and was part of the then chief minister
of Maharashtra Vasantrao Naik's camp. She held all the major portfolios from
health to education to urban development, and was leader of the opposition,
MPCC chief and deputy chairperson of the Lok Sabha. After 1990, she was in
the shadows before being appointed Governor in 2005 by Sonia.
The script that produced Patil's well-crafted
persona as a Presidential dead ringer though is running contrary to the story
on the ground. A series of allegations, surfacing from Jalgaon, Amravati and
Buldana, involving corruption, nepotism, involvement in murder and abetment
to suicide, has stained Patil's campaign. You could argue that politicians
are vulnerable to allegations at every election. But the fact is that these
charges are not being made casually. They are being made about the family
of the next possible President of India. This is not just a call for attention.
It is a cause for alarm. L.K. Advani, leader of the Opposition in Parliament,
put it in perspective when he asked the constituents of the UPA to consider
what would .happen if the Rashtrapati Bhavan got a tainted occupant, and therefore
to cast a conscience vote.
Strange as it may seem, there is not a trace
of celebration even at the Patil mansion in Jalgaon. In fact, there is stifled
anger. Says Jalgaon District Congress spokesperson Vilas Patil: "Tai,
as she is referred to, is a meethi chhuri (sweet knife). Although she speaks
very sweetly, her intentions are never noble. She has always tried to crush
promising people in the party and promoted her own kin." She espoused
all the right causes-education, empowerment of women and rural development.
Her family runs 18 educational institutions including schools, colleges and
technical training institutions. She also started a bank for women and promoted
the concept of working women's hostels. For farmers, she set up a sugar factory.
But intentions have not translated into goodwill. Vilas adds that he has complained
against her, but to no avail. Congressmen in Jalgaon believe that it is because
of her that the party has lost its identity. Allegations of ticket being given
to her younger brother G.N. Patil to contest the Lok Sabha polls twice-he
lost both times-are rife. Her nephew, similarly, was foisted for the Panchayat
and zila parishad polls.
In 1974, she helped set up the Pratibha Mahila
Sahakari Bank for empowering women. While it seems to have done well for the
first two decades, since 1995 the bank has been declared "weak"
by the RBI. In February 2003, the RBI cancelled its "licence to carryon
banking business" as the bank's paid-up share capital was negative, its
assets had eroded and gross non-performing assets amounted to Rs 391.20 lakh.
In a memorandum-copies of which are being circulated by Congressmen from Jalgaon-the
employees' union complained that founder-chairperson Pratibha "facilitated
loans without surety to her own relatives" and despite the fact that
the bank was under rehabilitation, got interest on loans waived. The bank
set up for empowering women had extended loans to men and women from the Patil
family amounting to Rs 224.49 lakh, which were not returned.
The Sant Muktabai Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana
Ltd. (SSK), Jalgaon, was set up by her along with a few others in 1980 to
help farmers take the cooperative route to prosperity. The project took off
only in 1994-95, with a loan from the Mumbai Central District Cooperative
Bank (MCDCB). It never broke even. Indeed, soon after Sonia visited the factory
in 1999, it shut down and owes the MCDCB Rs 17.70 crore. The loan was not
in her name, but the fact of default by a cooperative where she was the chairperson
cannot be denied. Pawar, who sprang to her defence, said 74 sugar mills had
been issued notices. True, but promoters of the other 73 are not contesting
for the post of the supreme custodian of the Constitution.
Take the issue of the murder of Professor
Vishram Patil, who was the district president of the Jalgaon Congress Committee.
After defeating Pratibha's brother G.N. Patil for the post, he discovered
a misuse of funds collected for tsunami relief in 2005. "The funds were
not collected by Pratibha. I understand they have been deposited with the
collector with a valid receipt," defends I & B Minister Priya Ranjan
Dasmunshi. Vishram wrote letters to MPCC chief Prabha Rau (on April 21), AICC
General Secretary Margaret Alva (on August 3) and Maharashtra Governor S.M.
Krishna (on August 25), alleging misappropriation of nearly Rs 2 lakh. On
September 21,2005, he was murdered. In Jalgaon, Congressmen whisper how "Tai"
never even went to offer condolences. The "culprits" were arrested,
but they alleged that they were forced to confess the crime. One of the accused,
Raju Mali, who alleged that G.N. Patil was the real accused, collapsed in
jail and died in hospital, triggering speculation about suicide. Since then,
Vishram's widow Rajnihas fought a bitter battle, sending petitions to the
prime minister, to Sonia, and to the President.
The Congress says most of the charges are
politically motivated. It has also defended her by stating that "none
of these allegations touch her personally as they deal with institutions,
and even in the murder case, G.N. Patil is not mentioned in the chargesheet
or the FIR". Perhaps that is something for the liquidators of the bank,
the auditors of MCDCB and the CBI-which is now looking into the murder case-to
decide, But more serious is the charge, against her husband, of abetment to
a suicide, Kisan Dhage was a teacher who worked at the Shreemati Nathibai
High School in Sungaon in the Buldana district run by Devisinh Shekhawat under
the Vidya Bharati Pratishtan. Not paid salary, Dhage filed a case in the Nagpur
Bench of the high court against the trust. The court ordered that Dhage be
paid salary. The trust did not implement the order and Dhage, who was burdened
with debt, committed suicide on November 15,1998, and named Shekhawat as one
of those responsible for it. After a struggle, when Dhage's family managed
to get an FIR registered, Shekhawat sought anticipatory bail, which was rejected
by both the lower court and the sessions court in Khamgaon, which stated that
"these instances are sufficient enough to inspire that these accused
had abetted Mr Kisan Dhage to commit suicide by creating an unbearable situation
for his survival and also making him unable to maintain his family."
It added that "prima facie there is sufficient grounds" to uphold
the lower court's order in denying bail.
This was in February. Devisinh has recently
got an interim stay in the high court asking for a review and Dhage's family
has begun receiving pension after the court's order. Innocent till proved
guilty may be the credo of the judicial system, but the high office of President
calls for integrity and freedom from taint, however distant or light in hue.
As BJP leader Sushma Swaraj asks, what if the CBI finds Devisinh guilty or
charge sheets him? "Will they go to Rashtrapati Bhavan to arrest the
pati of the rashtrapati?"
Though Sonia had asked her core team to get
all the three women candidates scrutinised and all of them were given a clean
chit, there has obviously been a slip-up. As the battle heats up, more dirt
will be raised. To those in the know, the support from Shiv Sena on the Marathi
manoos plank is no surprise. Patil's uncle Diwan Raobahadur was friends with
Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray's family and his father Prabodhankar Thackeray,
and she has maintained the friendship. Sena leader Sanjay Raut adds, "She
has high regard for Balasaheb." Devisinh's friendship with the head of
the RSS in Jalgaon, too, is the talk of the small town. Politics cannot be
devoid of friendships, but the high decibel campaign of the Congress on secularism
and probity in public life runs contrary to the litany of charges being aired
from within the party and outside. It is also adding to the discomfiture of
the UPA allies, especially the Left.
On the face of it, the Congress and the CPA
have little to fear. With 5.74 lakh votes in an electoral college of 10.98
lakh, the arithmetic of the politics is in their favour. Add the
Shiv Sena's 20,779 votes and the total rises to 5.95 lakh votes, which is
46,000 votes over and above the halfway mark. But it is not the arithmetic
that bothers them. It is the algebra of dented perception that is worrying.
With scandal and mud-slinging making the battle ugly, the Congress has put
a crack team led by Dasmunshi, along with Prithviraj Chauhan, Suresh Pachouri
and Jayanti Natarajan to manage the affairs and the ward. Such is the level
of aggression that opposition parties and Third Front members are charging
the Congress of using income tax raids on ]D(s) sympathisers in Bangalore,
CBI cases on Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh, and other methods (the
case in the Election Commission against AIADMK leader J. J ayalalithaa) to
prevent the challenger, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, from wooing the fence-sitters.
Simultaneously, the Congress has launched a move to get Natwar Singh, who
is one of Shekhawat's proposers, disqualified from the Rajya Sabha. It plans
to bring up Natwar's involvement in the Volcker scam to offset allegations
being thrown at its candidate.
There is good old-fashioned political wooing
too. Dasmunshi called up Bhim Singh of the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers
Party as soon as he proposed Shekhawat's name for President, and wooed his
votes, saying, "They are saying Shekhawat is the only Lion in the country,
what about you?" Bhim Singh's party has a total of four MLAs and no MPs.
Total votes: 288, which is just above 0.02 per cent of the electoral college.
At another level, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Samajwadi Party leader
Amar Singh over for tea at his Race Course Road. More action will follow in
the days to come, and as Dasmunshi says, will continue till July 19. A week
is a long time in politics, and three weeks is way too long. The Congress
could win the electoral battle, but political parties survive on public perception.
Even Congressmen admit that with their brute majority, they could have done
better. The embarrassing choice will not be washed away by a victory and cannot
be easily wished away either.