Pratibha Patil, True Story - by Arun Shourie (Disturbing Credentials)

(the financial frauds, the murder, the deliberate derailment of the
investigation)

'A big step for women... This shows India has a lot of respect for
women... My nomination will inspire other women and help their
empowerment...' - that is how Pratibha Patil described her selection
as the UPA candidate for being our President. Loyalists, of course,
went one better. 'A firm believer in women's causes and a tireless
champion of spreading education among girls... One who always stands
for a better deal for women... active role in checking such evils as
female foeticide and dowry...' 'Working women of Mumbai hail...' 'Yes,
Ma'am Commander' - Armymen look forward to reporting to first woman
Supreme Commander of Armed Forces...

And all this within two days of her selection.

Her bio-data lists her 'special interests' as 'development of rural
economy and welfare of women', and lists as evidence, 'Establishment
of Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank at Jalgaon, Maharashtra... of Mahila
Vikas Mahamandal...' It records her being Managing Trustee, Shram
Sadhana Trust, as her being the 'Chief Promoter and Chairperson of
Sugar Factory in Jalgaon District'. It records her having set up the
Engineering College 'for the benefit of rural youth'...

We start with the 'cooperative bank' she set up in her own name to
help other women - the Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank.

Although this is listed in her bio-data, and although it has been
referred to again and again by newspapers, how is it that neither the
bio-data nor the newspapers mention that the bank has actually been
liquidated? Under orders of the Reserve Bank of India, no less. And
that too on the telling ground that its continuance would be
prejudicial to the interests of depositors.

Brief history

Pratibha Patil established the bank in 1973 with herself as the
chairperson, and with many members of her own family as its directors.
She herself became a director for several terms. As for members of her
family, they inter-changed, among themselves, the chairs of the Board
of Directors in one 'election' after another. But while others changed
places, Pratibha Patil continued as Founder Chairperson right till the
demise of the bank.

Since the bank was not being managed properly, the Reserve Bank of
India, in 1995, included it in its list of 'weak banks' and placed it
under rehabilitation 'due to heavy erosion in its assets as observed
in the inspection in March 1994.'

The RBI conducted an in-depth inspection of the bank's functioning
again in 2002. In his order dated 25 February 2003, P.B . Mathur,
Executive Director of the RBI, stated that the inspection revealed the
following irregularities:

1: The real or exchangeable value of the bank's paid-up share capital
and reserves stands at minus Rs. 197.67 lakh. Thus, the bank is not
having adequate assets to meet its liabilities. The bank does not
comply with the RBI's requirement of minimum share capital...

2: The ratio of the net erosion to net owned funds of the bank is as
high as 312.4% and the erosion in the value of the bank's assets has
not only wiped out its owned funds but has also affected the deposits
to the extent of Rs. 197.67 lakh, forming 26% of total deposits...

3: The gross NPAs of the bank, that is loans that have gone bad,
amount to 65.8% of the total loans and advances...

4: The Board has not made any concerted effort to improve the bank's
financial position and bring it out of the weak status...

As a consequence, the RBI in its order stated: 'Having regard to all
the facts, the Reserve Bank of India is satisfied that allowing the
bank to carry on banking business any further would be detrimental to
the interest of the present and future depositors and hence the
license granted to the PRATIBHA MAHILA SAHAKARI BANK LTD. is hereby
cancelled.'

Who got the loans?

But how did the assets of the bank get eroded? Why did this
'cooperative bank' - functioning as it must have been in the interests
of its members - not take any action to retrieve the loans and instead
endanger its very existence? Remember that the order of the RBI to
liquidate the bank was not a sudden bolt. The RBI had put the bank on
its list of 'weak banks' in 1995, that is a full eight years before
the RBI had to decide that it just must be liquidated, and cancelled
its license. Throughout these eight years why did Board not make any
"concerted effort to improve the bank's financial position"?


A brief list of the sorts of persons who had been given the 'loans'
and were not repaying them, tells the tale.

Name of the NPA holder Relationship to P. Patil
Amount due with penalty

Rajeshwari Kishorisingh Patil Brother's daughter-in-law
Rs. 45, 82, 670

Kishor Dilipsingh Patil Nephew
Rs. 51, 02, 183

Kishor Dilipsingh Patil Nephew
Rs. 43, 87, 680

Udhavsingh Dagdu Rajput Brother's kin

Udhavsingh Dagdu Rajput Brother's kin and wife
Rs. 42, 89, 602

Jayashri Udhavsingh Rajput

Randhirsingh Dilipsingh Rajput Nephew
Rs. 21, 44, 800

Udhavsingh Dagdu Rajput

Jyoti Vijaysingh Patil

Kishor Dilipsingh Patil Nephew
Rs. 10, 69, 893

Dilispsingh N. Patil Brother
Rs. 3, 09, 562

Dilispsingh N. Patil Brother
Rs. 5, 62, 840

Total:
Rs. 2, 24, 49, 150

____________________________________________________________

Notice that among the women that were being empowered by this
cooperative for women - this Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank - were the
brother and nephews of Pratibha Patil! Males behind the Muslim veil,
Dr. Watson!

For my friends, the champions of employees' unions

The Cooperative Bank Employees Union wrote one memorandum after
another exposing how the directors of the Pratibha Mahila Sahakari
Bank were systematically bankrupting the bank. They demanded dismissal
of the family-controlled board. They demanded 'a CBI inquiry against
Pratibha Patil, former Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, for the
irregularities in the bank'. They wrote these letters, in Marathi, to
the relevant authorities in Maharashtra looking after the affairs of
cooperative banks. They sent them to the then President, to the then
Prime Minister, to among others, 'Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Leader of the
Opposition (Lok Sabha)...'

In one such lengthy memorandum dated 3.12.2001, the Employees' Union
complained, 'Founder Chairperson Pratibha Patil - during, before and
after the period when she was formally on the Board of Directors - has
facilitated the loot of large sums of money in the form of unlawful
loans without surety extended to her own relatives and to people close
to her family.' The Union alleged that, even though the bank was on
the verge of bankruptcy, Pratibha Patil got huge amounts of interest
waived on the loans given to her close relatives. As illustrations,
they listed three such accounts:

1) Anjali Dilipsingh Patil (Pratibha Patil's niece), who got a waiver
of Rs. 21.86 lakh;

2) Kavita Aravind Patil (sister-in-law of Pratibha Patil), who got a
waiver of Rs. 8.59 lakh; and

3) Rajkaur Dilipsingh Patil (another sister-in-law of Pratibha Patil),
who got a waiver of Rs. 2.47 lakh.

The waivers given, the accounts were promptly closed!

This, the Union stated, 'is a loot of Rs. 32.93 lakh'. You will not be
surprised to learn that, within the bank, the complaint got nowhere.
And for good reason: the legal advisor to the bank was Pratibha
Patil's elder brother, Dilipsingh Patil, and Dilipsingh Patil's own
wife was one of the beneficiaries of the loan waiver!

'The purpose of the cooperative movement,' the Union's letter stated,
'is to promote people's economic, social and educational development
and thereby strengthen patriotism in them. But (in this bank),
Pratibha Patil, her elder brother Dilipsingh Patil and the Board of
Directors have, through different means, robbed nearly Rs. 2 crore...
The bank is thus being bankrupted through a collusive strategy.' 'What
kind of morality is this?,' the Union asked.

In a writ filed in the Bombay High Court - Pratibha Patil is one of
the respondents in the case -- the employees of the bank also said
something else that will be of particular interest to our champions of
social justice. They said, 'The respondent Directors have also
appointed staff without following the recruitment procedure that the
posts are reserved for reserve categories such as S.C., S.T., O.B.C.
The managing Directors have appointed their relatives as employees of
the Bank...'

To rescue the bank from imminent demise, the Union demanded 'seizure
of the property of Smt. Pratibha Patil, her brother Dilipsingh Patil
and her relatives'. In addition it demanded an inquiry into how they
had amassed 'such huge assets'.

As a result of this memorandum, the Department of Cooperatives,
Government of Maharashtra, initiated an inquiry. Even as the inquiry
was going on, a past president of the Employees Union, Anantsingh
Patil, wrote an ever-so-helpful letter to Pratibha Patil, on the
Union's letterhead, informing her that she had nothing to do with the
irregularities of the bank! He even tendered an apology to her on
behalf of the Union! The Union nails the lie. It points to several
telling facts. For instance, it says, on 22, January, 2002, the Board
had met and, much as the Congress does today !, by resolution no. 23,
authorized Pratibha Patil to decide who should be on the Board of
Directors and who should be the bank's Chief Executive.

But the matter did not end with the Union's letter or the inquiry of
the Maharashtra Government's Cooperative Department. The Reserve Bank
of India went into the waiver also. In its confidential inspection
report dated 18 June, 2002, found the charge of financial fraud
involving those large interest waivers to Pratibha Patil's three close
relatives to be valid. It also noted that the Board had not taken
approval of the AGM for the loan waiver.

Some women were certainly getting empowered!

A pattern

Memoranda of the Employees Union show that such enterprising
sleights-of-account-books were part of a pattern. The memoranda and
communications were sent to, among others, Pratibha Patil herself. For
instance, in a letter to her on 13 March, 2002, the President,
Vice-president and Secretary of the Union informed her that

· She had allowed her elder brother,
Dilipsingh Patil, to use the bank's telephone (no. 224672, which he
had got installed at his residence) for running his stock exchange
business. He ran up a bill of Rs. 20 lakh. Phone records showed that
the calls were made to sharebrokers in Mumbai. These records were
subsequently destroyed. But later the charge was found to be one of
substance. It was one of the things that Amol Khairnar, who was
appointed as the chief administrator of bank, asked P.D. Patil,
manager of the bank, to explain in the show-cause notice that the
former issued on 1 February, 2003.

· The show-cause notice also mentioned
that the Pratibha Mahil Sahakari Bank had extended unlawful loans to
the Sant Muktabai Cooperative Sugar Factory from time to time. As you
will recall, the sugar factory too was set up by Pratibha Patil
herself to help rural youth! It was inaugurated by Sonia Gandhi in
1999. As The Asian Age has reported, like the Pratibha Mahila Sahakari
Bank, the mill too has closed down - but only after running up a loan
default of nearly Rs. 20 crore and without ever producing much sugar!

· The bank also gave loans to
undeserving persons to buy shares of the Sant Muktabai Cooperative
Sugar Factory. Pratibha Patil and her brothers did so for a reason
that my good friend of long-standing, Sharad Pawar would again find
nothing extraordinary: they did so in order to retain control over the
sugar factory by having these shareholders support her in 'elections'
to the cooperative.

If you don't stop...

'It is because of these reasons that the bank is now on the verge of
going bankrupt,' the Employees Union charged. It then posed a question
to her that those - like my friend Sharad Pawar -- who are making
light of this state of affairs in the bank on the ground that such
things are nothing new in cooperatives would like to answer: 'Whom
should the society trust if politicians like you start cooperative
institutions to rob the hard-earned wealth of ordinary people?'

And then come two paragraphs that should be weighed in the scale of
the high office to which Pratibha Patil is being catapulted. Before
concluding, the Union's President, Vice-president and Secretary state,
'You are the Founder Chairperson of this bank, but you are today
attempting, out of selfish reasons, to lead the bank to its demise.
You know that the RBI has decided to cancel the bank's license if its
financial condition does not improve by March 2002. Once the license
is cancelled and the bank is liquidated, you are quite capable of
covering-up the fraud you have committed on the bank and the people of
this region by using your influence on the Government of Maharashtra.'

And then comes the last para. To get to know our next President, the
one who will be the Guardian of our Constitution, do read it twice:
'There is threat to our lives and to the lives of our family members
from you. You have already communicated this to us in our meeting with
you. Although you have made us aware of this threat, we are prepared
to lay down our lives for the pursuit of truth. If something happens
to us or to members of our families, accidentally or otherwise, you
will be responsible for it, which please note.'

And a letter from the women who were to be empowered

We have focused on 'women' who got loans. But who were the depositors?
They were the poor women of the area - who were eking out a living by
selling vegetables, by collecting rags... What were they telling our
'firm believer in women's causes', our 'tireless champion of...'? A
representative, and typically plaintive letter from them, awakens us
to their wail:

'We opened accounts in your bank trusting that it had been established
to help poor women and to come to their aid in times of need. You know
that the bank is now on the brink of bankruptcy. Therefore, a crisis
is looming before ordinary depositors. Politicians plant saplings on
Tree Plantation Day and get their photographs printed in newspapers
the next day. But they don't take care of the sapling thereafter. This
bank too was a sapling that you had planted. It was growing well and
promised to bear fruit. It had given shelter to you too. Then who
killed this tree? Once the bank is liquidated, those who took the
loans do not have to worry, just as when a sahukar dies, the persons
to whom he had lent money heave a sigh of relief. But what about poor
women depositors like us who are vegetable vendors, fruit-sellers,
rag-pickers, etc, who saved our meager earnings in your bank, hoping
that the money would be useful to us in our old age or for the
marriage of our daughters? Pratibhatai, we tried a lot to meet you
personally. We were unsuccessful. But you know everything. Therefore,
we urge you to disclose the names of all those culprits who are
responsible for the bankruptcy of our bank.'

And what did our tireless champion of women's rights, our devotee of
rural development do?

'It is all a BJP-conspiracy'

A murder they don't care about

Arun Shourie

The 'cooperative' bank for empowering women liquidated under orders of
the Reserve Bank... The sugar mill bankrupt, having swallowed over Rs.
20 crore of unpaid loans... We see the very same pattern in the other
endeavours of our next President. Her bio-data speaks of the Shram
Sadhana Trust that she has set up. It runs an engineering college -
for rural youth, as the bio-data says.

What do documents show? A Medical Aid Account is set up for students.
Naturally, money from it goes to doctors - and, lo and behold, her
brother, Dr. GN Patil's name stands out by a mile... Employees of the
college turn out to be working at the residences of the various
directors - some in Mumbai. A guest house is built, and comes to be
used, not by academicians visiting the college, but by members of the
family... Money collected from the students goes to the
soon-to-be-declared bankrupt sugar mill... Money is taken from the
teachers' salaries as compulsory deposits in that family-controlled
'cooperative' bank; these deposits are used to enroll 'shareholders'
in the bank - who in turn help the family win the 'elections' of the
cooperative bank... A pattern through and through.

Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, who has been so exercised about enforcing
morality on the media, is unmoved. 'A visibly upset Dasmunsi hit out
at the NDA for trying to malign Patil's image,' The Indian Express
reports. 'In the process, he drew a parallel between Patil's case and
"many political leaders" whose brothers, sisters and relatives were
loan defaulters and also "electronic media industry" which has been
slapped with plenty of notices.'

Surely, the answer is to bring them to book too. Surely, the answer is
to do what so many of us have been demanding for so long - namely, to
publish the names of all bank-defaulters. Not to pick one of them at
random and make her or him President of India!

In any case, even Munsi, in spite of his fertile imagination, will not
claim that murder has brushed the hem of the 'electronic media
industry' as closely as it has in this instance.

Names and dates

But first a few names and dates.

Vishram G. Patil: Professor of English at a college in Jalagaon
affiliated to the North Maharashtra University. A Congressman for
thirty years. Elected President of the District Congress Committee not
once but thrice. Murdered on 21 September, 2005.

Rajani Patil: his wife. Professor of Marathi at the same college.

G.N. Patil: brother of the UPA nominee for the Presidentship of India.
Rival and adversary of Vishram Patil. Defeated by Vishram Patil in his
effort to become President of the District Congress Committee.

Ulhas Patil: former member of Parliament. Close associate of G.N.
Patil. Rival and adversary of Vishram Patil. Runs a number of NGOs.

Raju Mali and Raju Sonawane: two arrested for murdering Vishram Patil.
Raju Mali tells Aaj Tak correspondent that they are just being made
sacrificial goats. The real perpetrators of the murder are at large.
Who are they, he is asked. "The persons who are being named by Rajani
Patil," he says. He suddenly dies in police custody - three days
after, at long last, the CBI team visits Jalagaon on its first visit.

Leeladhar Narkhede and Damodar Lokhande: two who are named as having
financed the murder of Vishram Patil. Phone records show several calls
between them and G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil on the day before the
murder, on the day of the murder and on the day after. The two are
picked up. But four months later, they are let off. The FIR about them
is withdrawn.

A few dates: 21 September, 2005: Vishram Patil murdered. Great
commotion in Jalagaon. People openly say that he has been killed as
the result of a supari having been given to murder him. By the fourth
day, Police say they have completed '90 per cent' of the
investigation, and will soon get the killers and those behind them.
Police arrest the two who confess to the actual murder.

October 2006: Aaj Tak puts out a detailed story by Manish Awasthi
cataloguing the murder. In it, Aaj Tak takes viewers through the
records of the mobile telephone company that establish that numerous
calls were made between the two reported financiers of the murder and
the brother of Pratibha Patil, G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil - the calls
were made on the day before the murder, on the day of the murder and
on the day after the murder. The channel shows the exact times and
duration of the calls from the records of the mobile phone company.
Awasthi's story contains a devastating interview of Raju Mali from
within the jail. In September 2005, they had gone on an indefinite
fast inside the jail. Raju Mali says in the interview that they had
stopped taking food to protest against the Police for not arresting,
for not even questioning the real culprits, 'the persons named by
Rajani Patil'. 'We have simply been made sacrificial goats in the case
while the real culprits are untouched.'

4 April, 2007: a year and a half after the murder, and after
vicissitudes that we shall soon encounter, the CBI team comes to
Jalagaon for its first visit.

7 April, 2007: the CBI team interrogates Rajani Patil, the widow of
the murdered DCC President. But something else happens in the jail not
far away: Raju Mali dies in Police custody.

Events

The brother of Pratibha Patil, G.N. Patil -- who, as we have seen, has
been a close collaborator in her endeavours to empower women and bring
succour to rural youth - is a frustrated rival of Vishram Patil. The
latter has defeated him to the Presidentship of the District Congress
Committee.

Congress workers collect funds - ostensibly to provide relief to
tsunami victims. These are never deposited in the Chief Minister's
Relief Fund.

Congress workers again collect funds - this time to felicitate
Pratibha Patil upon her appointment as Governor of Rajasthan. No one
hears what happens to these funds either.

Several office-bearers of the District Congress Committee send a
memorandum to Prabha Rau, head of the Maharashtra Congress, asking her
to institute an inquiry into the missing funds. They receive no reply.

15 August, 2005: nine office-bearers of the DCC issue a press release
saying that G.N. Patil, the brother of Pratibha Patil, has not
submitted accounts of funds that were collected by Congress workers
for felicitating Pratibha Patil.

Vishram Patil commences an inquiry within the Congress into the
misappropriation of the funds. He also commences an inquiry into
financial dealings of Ulhas Patil and his NGOs. He brings the matter
to the attention of the high-command of the Congress.

He receives three anonymous letters. Written in hand, they state that
a supari has been given out to kill him, that he should be careful. He
persists with the inquiry.

He is killed. Local dailies are full of the murder. They surmise that
it is the result of political rivalries in the District Congress
Committee.

Because of the enormous commotion among the local people, the Police
act. Within a few days, they nab the killers.

They make swift progress in the investigation. They tell Rajani Patil,
the widow, that 90 per cent of the investigation is over, that they
will soon get the ones who instigated the murder also.

Suddenly, the investigation goes off the rails. The police now put out
a story that the murder actually took place because of a dispute over
money that Raju Mali had borrowed from Vishram Patil. Rajani Patil
strongly refutes the insinuation. Local papers puncture holes in this
new concoction of the Police. As suddenly as the concoction had been
put out, the investigation is taken out of the hands of the local
police entirely, and turned over to the CID of the state Government.

26 September, 2005: alarmed at the way the investigation is being
derailed, the widow, Rajani Patil writes to Sonia Gandhi. She says,
'The brain behind the crime is pressurizing the investigation
process.'

27 September, 2005: a local paper, Deshdoot, reports that at a press
conference, Rajiv Patil, the parabhari adhyaksha of the Congress, has
said that Raju Mali, the killer, is an agent of G.N. Patil, the
brother of Pratibha Patil, Governor of Rajasthan. Another report in
the paper says that everyone in Jalagaon is talking about the contract
killing, about how much was paid for it, and by whom...

The same day, 27 September, 2005, thirteen office-bearers of the
District Congress Committee write to the local Superintendent of
Police. They name G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil as being the persons
behind the murder and express grave concern that the investigation is
being dragged down to a crawl.

28 September, 2005: Local papers like Deshdoot and Deshunnati carry a
tell-tale photograph. It is the day the election of the District
Congress Committee President takes place. A group is standing around
the victor, Vishram Patil. In the picture, mysteriously, is Raju Mali
- the very man who is to kill Vishram Patil soon. He was not and is
not a member of the Congress, the papers say. Who let him into the
party office? With whose blessing was he roaming inside the office?
With who is he linked? They have no doubt about the answer...

On 28 September, 2005, Manik Rao Gavit, the Minister of State in the
Home Ministry at the Centre, writes to the Chief Minister of
Maharashtra. He writes that he has received a letter from the Working
President of the Jalagaon District Congress Committee, Rajiv Patil, in
which the latter has named G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil as the
conspirators behind the murder. Gavit says that there is haa-haakaar
in the local Congress, hence he is sending Rajiv Patil's letter. He
urges the Chief Minister to have the matter investigated in this
direction and to do everything necessary to get at the real culprits
and have them punished.

The local papers are full of the inaction that has overtaken the
investigation. The real culprits are at large, they say. The names of
G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil are splashed across the headlines of
stories connected with the murder. Rajani Patil, the widow, writes to
the local Police chief: 'This murder has been committed out of
political enmity. I therefore urge you to investigate the case from
this angle and arrest the persons concerned. I strongly believe that,
under somebody's pressure, there is an attempt to misdirect the Police
investigation by fabricating cock-and-bull stories.'

5 October, 2005: Rajiv Patil, the parabhari-adhyaksha of the Congress
, writes to the Chief Minister, to the Director General of Police, and
to the head of the Pune Branch of the CID. He records his concern that
the investigation is going nowhere. He urges that some of the officers
who were handling the initial investigation and who know the facts
should be involved in the inquiry. He gives the names of the concerned
officers. He receives no reply.

15 October, 2005: Rajiv Patil writes to the authorities again pointing
to the connection between the killers and G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil.
He says that the killers who have been nabbed were never Congress
activists, that they were brought to the Congress office by G.N. Patil
and Ulhas Patil only at the time of the DCC election.

1 December, 2005: two months have gone by since the murder, the
investigation has been steered into the wrong direction all
too-patently. Rajani Patil, the widow, writes to R.R. Patil, the
Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister of the state. She expresses
her anguish at what has been done to the investigation. It is going
nowhere, she says. The police had assured us that 90 per cent of the
investigation is over and that they will soon get to the real
conspirators. But as 'the real conspirators have high-level
connections, when only 10 per cent of the investigation was left, the
case was taken out of their hands and given to the state CID.'

8 December, 2005: Rajani Patil again writes to the Chief Minister and
Home Minister of the state. She strongly repudiates the police
insinuation that there was some financial dispute between her husband
and the killers. My husband was killed because of the supari given by
the political rivals of my husband, she writes. You can find out who
gave the supari by asking the two who are in custody, she tells them.
There is no response.

Rajani Patil travels to Delhi. She meets Sonia Gandhi personally in
January 2006. She narrates the sequence of the case. She also meets
other Congress bigwigs - Ahmed Patel, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Margaret
Alva and others.

They move not a finger. Instead, the FIR against the two who are said
to have financed the murder is dropped. Having first snatched the
investigation away from the local police and transferred it to the
state CID, the Government now decides that the investigation is best
done by the CBI!

Three months pass - ostensibly waiting for the CBI to respond.
Eventually, the CBI informs the state Government that it is
overwhelmed with work, that as the case has no 'inter-state or
international ramifications', it is not a fit case for the agency.

Everyone sees through the attempt to kill the inquiry and thus protect
the real conspirators. The intrepid widow files a petition in the
Aurangabad Bench of the High Court. On 23 February, 2007, by a
detailed order the Court dismisses the CBI's objections about there
being no 'inter-state or international ramifications'. We are aware of
this as well as of the work which the agency is already handling, the
Court records. That is why only in exceptional cases does the Court
direct it to take the case in hand. This is a case of that kind. 'We
have scrutinized the record with the help of counsel of both sides,'
the Court records in its order. 'We have considered the chequered
history of the present case, the developments which have taken place
after filing of the chargesheet, issues involved, and the reference to
alleged conspiracy by influential political leaders of the region.
Having regard to the importance of the issues involved and the alleged
complicity of the influential political leaders..., in our considered
opinion, this is a fit case where the investigation should be
conducted by the CBI.'

Of course, by knocking the investigation around - from the local
police to the state CID to the CBI, only to have the CBI turn down the
case - the powers-that-be have already achieved one objective: by now,
more than a year and a half has passed since the murder was committed.

5 March, 2007: disheartened and broken, Rajani Patil again writes to
Sonia Gandhi. As you also lost your husband, you are the one person
who will understand my wound, she writes. She recalls the anonymous
letters that her husband had received warning him to desist from the
inquiry, warning that 'a supari to murder my husband had been given by
Dr. Ulhas Patil and Dr. G.N. Patil, the brother of Smt. Pratibha
Patil, Governor of Rajasthan. On the morning of 21.9.2005, my husband
was brutally murdered...' 'I fear that my whole family is likely to
get liquidated by these brutal murderers if they continue to get
politically patronized by the party,' she concludes.

She receives no reply.

Recounting all this in the memorandum she submits to the President
later on, and driven to despondence by the fact that no one has paid
the slightest heed to her tears and pleas, she adds, 'I feel anguished
that they are indeed getting politically patronized by the party.'

The CBI team comes at last to Jalagaon on 4 April, 2007. It
interrogates the widow on 7 April. On the same day, the killer, Raju
Mali dies in police custody...

Throughout this period, the widow, Rajani Patil, is pleading before
the state and Congress authorities. Not just she, but functionaries of
the local Congress themselves, in particular Shridhar Bapu Chaudhury,
the party's General Secretary keep dispatching letters and memoranda
pointing to G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil. All these letters as well as
those of Rajiv Patil, the prabhari adhyaksha of the Congress in
Jalagaon, are on letterheads of the Congress.

The response

'It is all a BJP ploy. It shows their desperation at not being able to
find a candidate of the stature of Pratibha Patil,' proclaim the
Congress spokesmen. But the record consists of letters, memoranda,
press conferences, writ petitions of Congressmen.

But I am on another point: assume that everything is a conspiracy of
the BJP. What about the facts? What about the facts, for instance, set
out by Aaj Tak?

'But why now? The timing of these allegations itself shows that they
have been manufactured only to tarnish the image of Pratibha Patil as
she is standing for the Presidentship of the country. After all, why
are they bringing up these things now?' This is their other, wholly
predictable defence.

It so happens that all the events, documents, proceedings in court,
communications, etc., pertain to the period before Pratibha Patil was
plucked from nowhere to be the Presidential candidate. And they are
being recounted today precisely because Pratibha Patil has been
nominated to become the President of the country. Till the other day,
these were frauds of some district politicians. The murder was of
concern primarily to the Jalagaon people. Precisely because Pratibha
Patil is likely to become the President, each facet -- the financial
frauds, the murder, the deliberate derailment of the investigation --
becomes a matter of urgent national concern. If the frauds and murder
are not exhumed today, why, that would be a real conspiracy...

The politics

Could it be that the Congress high-ups, in particular Sonia Gandhi,
did not know about these associations of Pratibha Patil? I was at
first inclined to think so. After all, Pratibha Patil's name had been
picked out of a hat at the last minute. There might have been no time
for a background check.

But on going through these letters after letters, these memoranda
after memoranda - one and all of them written and sent by Congressmen,
one and all of them sent to Congressmen; after reading Rajani Patil's
account of her meeting with Sonia Gandhi and other Congress leaders in
Delhi; after going through the proceedings in courts; after seeing the
screaming headlines of the local papers, I just can not believe that
neither Sonia Gandhi nor her immediate colleagues remembered nothing
of the case. After all, the head of their own party in the district,
the very man who had been thrice elected to the post, had been killed.
After all, all concerned in the party unit had been pointing to an
ex-MP of the Congress and the brother of the Governor of Rajasthan...
how could everyone have forgotten? Murders of district Congress chiefs
are still not that common.

So, the only inference is that they knew of the antecedents of
Pratibha Patil and for the very antecedents selected her.

And that stands to reason. A person who is weak and dutifully
submissive is already Prime Minister. But he has one defect - being
financially honest, he is not vulnerable. There is always the danger,
inconceivable though it seems at present, that at some point, he may
throw up his hands...

So, what is needed is not just a weak person. What is needed is a
person who is weak and vulnerable...

-------------------------------------------------------------

So very true. And also loyalty counts!!!

The wonderful thing about India is in spite of all such ongoings it continues to be the worlds largest democracy.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Nightmare
And that stands to reason. A person who is weak and dutifully
submissive is already Prime Minister. But he has one defect - being
financially honest, he is not vulnerable. There is always the danger,
inconceivable though it seems at present, that at some point, he may
throw up his hands...

So, what is needed is not just a weak person. What is needed is a
person who is weak and vulnerable...

-------------------------------------------------------------

---

So far the corrupt & criminal elements were being elected to the parliament.


Kalaam & Prathiba Patil..., what a contrast!!

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