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Pratibha Patil : Embarrassing Choice

Pratibha Patil : Embarrassing Choice

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.


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