Take Two

All the President’s Kin

Madhavankutty Pillai | 23 Feb, 2012

And their mysterious Rs 1 crore suitcases

Imagine for a moment a suitcase containing Rs 1 crore was found making its way to Rahul Gandhi. It would have been enough to take the sheen off the Gandhi family, and Sonia Gandhi would be pilloried over it in every election as long as she was contesting them. Yardsticks by which the Congress President would be judged, however, do not seem to apply to the Indian President. A suitcase containing a crore in bundles of Rs 100 and Rs 500 notes did in fact make its way to Patil’s son, and going by how much interest it has evoked, you would think no one found this particularly shocking.

On 12 February, a car was stopped by the police in Amravati and a bag containing the money was found in it. A personal assistant of a minister (aptly the minister of state for finance) was in the car. Questioning revealed that the money was being sent to Rao Saheb Shekhawat, who besides being an MLA from Amravati is also Pratibha Patil’s son. It was ostensibly party funds to finance the civic elections there. Bizarrely, the reason that Shekhawat, who was questioned this week, gave for such a huge sum being sent in cold cash was “miscommunication”. He claims the money was going to be used for the campaigning of 87 poor candidates
(a paradox) at Rs 1 lakh each and he had no idea it was going to be sent in cash. The Opposition says, with reason, that the cash makes it convenient to bribe voters.

What does the President have to do with it? Nothing on the surface. But it once again reaffirms the political stock she comes from. Her brother’s name has cropped up in the murder of a Jalgaon Congressman and the victim’s wife alleged at the time that Patil was shielding him. The licence of a cooperative bank set up by
Patil was revoked by the RBI in 2003 after allegations of irregularity in waivers of loans in which beneficiaries included her relatives.

The strangest predicament in the current Rs 1 crore controversy is that of the Election Commission, which is conducting an enquiry. Consider this: the Commission has just written to the President complaining against Salman Khurshid, India’s law minister, for defying guidelines on the model code of conduct during
the Uttar Pradesh polls. So, Pratibha Patil, who is supposed to address this grievance, is also an interested party in an investigation it is conducting against her own son. Something’s definitely twisted in all this.