With each passing day in the run-up to the presidential election, skeletons in the closet of the UPA-Left combine's nominee, Ms Pratibha Patil, are tumbling out. Loyal members of the Congress and Communist parties are cynically rebuffing the serious allegations. But the silence of the so-called secularists and human rights activists, who claim to fight on issues involving ethics and human rights, is disturbing. Their silence is in sharp contrast to the hue and cry they raised over the alleged encounter deaths in Gujarat recently.

Why is the murder of a district-level politician without criminal records in Jalgaon, Maharashtra, not stirring the conscience of these activists while they pressed for Government action against the police killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, a known extortionist, recently in Gujarat? Is it because the victim in one case is a Hindu and in the other a Muslim? Or is it because they find the life of one Indian less important than that of another? Why is the crime against an innocent Hindu 'tolerable' in their view?

Ms Rajni Patil, widow of the slain District Congress Committee president, has publicly accused the UPA's presidential candidate of shielding her brother and another Congressman who are the prime suspects in the murder. It is significant that in this two-year-old case, the Bombay High Court has ordered the shifting of investigation to the CBI. The court has found substance in her argument that some powerful local forces were shielding the real accused.

Of the two alleged conspirators behind the murder of the DCC president - who was a rival of Ms Pratibha Patil's group in the local Congress - Mr GN Patil is the Congress presidential candidate's brother and Mr Ulhas Patil is a former Congress MP. The allegations against them have been substantiated in the confessions of two persons - Raju Mali and Raju Sonwane - who were arrested by the police.

In fact the two arrested persons had later gone on a hunger strike demanding that the real culprits also be arrested. Mali told a television channel last year that the allegations made by Ms Rajni Patil against Mr GN Patil and Mr Ulhas Patil were true. Is it a mere coincidence that within three days of CBI sleuths visiting Jalgaon and interrogating the duo in connection with the murder, Raju Mali died in police custody? Where are the 'secularists' now, who put up frenzied protests against the establishment, particularly if it is a BJP-ruled State, every time a terrorist is killed by the security forces? Here, two persons were murdered and there is not even a whimper of protest.

If the Congress has dismissed these allegations as "baseless" and "untrue", this is in line with its historic tendency to protect criminals even while pretending to be the followers of Mahatma Gandhi. The Congress is asking for maintaining decorum in the presidential contest. But what ethical locus standi does it have when it has virtually bought the votes of BSP for Ms Pratibha Patil by protecting that party's chief from prosecution by the CBI?

It is not as if Ms Rajni Patil found the occasion of Ms Pratibha Patil's candidature opportune to sling mud at her. Ms Rajni Patil, a professor of Marathi in a Jalgaon college, has been running from pillar to post for the last two years for justice. She moved the High Court months before Ms Pratibha Patil was nominated as the UPA'a presidential candidate. If Ms Rajni Patil has gone public with her allegations now, it is for a valid reason: She fears that as Ms Pratibha Patil has been able to deflect the investigations into the murder away from her brother, Mr DN Patil, while she was Governor of Rajasthan, if she were to become the President, even the last chance of her getting justice would be gone.

Therefore, any malafide motive cannot be attributed to her, as the Congress spokesmen are doing. Most important, a President is provided constitutional immunity to any prosecution during his/her tenure, even if the act of crime is committed before the person assumes the President's office. Ms Rajni Patil has all the right reasons to fear that justice will not be done to her in the next five years in case Ms Pratibha Patil becomes the President.

It seems the Congress has become immune to all allegations as in the UPA Cabinet, there are members accused of - and even chargesheeted - for heinous crimes like defalcation of Government funds. Whenever the Congress has been in power at the Centre, Bofors prime accused Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi has been treated with kid gloves so that he can freely move his ill-gotten money across national boundaries and cock a snook at those who have been trying to bring him to justice. It was during a previous Congress regime that he escaped from this country even while the CBI was on the lookout for him.

It would be a 'star-studded' team if Ms Pratibha Patil manages to become the President. She will get the votes of a party that has been assured that its president, accused in a multi-crore land scam, will be spared. The presidential nominee has herself been a huge loan defaulter of a public institution for the last 12 years. She is also accused of protecting her family members from being investigated in a murder case.

With a galaxy of tainted Ministers in his Government, it's ironical that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should have advised leading industrialists at a recent CII meeting of the need to maintain ethical practices in business.

The very fact that a person with dubious antecedents can be considered for Rashtrapati Bhawan will encourage lawbreakers across the country. It is worth noting that in Israel recently when a criminal case was traced to the President of that country, the public prosecutor insisted on interrogating him, leading to his exit from active politics. Neither did he seek nor did Israel's Government provide him with any immunity despite the high position he held.

What a contrast we see in our country! It is for the first time in the 60 years of independent India that we have a presidential candidate at whom such serious allegations are being levelled. This is a national shame.

Courtesy: www.dailypioneer.com, June 29, 2007