Electing a President, rashtramaataaPratibha Patil-- True story, by Arun Shourie
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
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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…
Showing posts with label loot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label loot. Show all posts
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
sonia gandhi: dark secrets
INTRODUCTION
Patriotic Indians should thank the President of India for having the courage, by citing a legal hitch, to dissuade Ms. Sonia Gandhi from staking her claim to form the government on May 17th this year. She therefore, despite all the contrived media hype, did not, and could not, become the Prime Minister of 1 billion plus people of India. It can now be said that Bharat Mata has been saved from a monumental, devastating, and permanent injury to her national interest and to the patriotic psyche of Indians. Therefore, it should be the resolve of every Indian to make any and every effort that can be made in a democracy, to ensure that Ms. Sonia Gandhi is kept permanently out of reckoning for any public office. For those who instinctively understand that imperative, this Note has been written to explain the factual basis for this rational determination, and suggest what patriotic Indians can do now to implement that democratic and patriotic resolution.My opposition to Ms. Sonia Gandhi is not merely because she is Italian---born, although that by itself is a major issue. In other democratic countries, including in Italy, such an issue [of foreign-born aspiring to be head of government]would not even arise at all because the issue has already been settled by incorporating into law that a person cannot hold the highest public office unless he or she is native born. In India there is no such law but the President, according my knowledge, has correctly acted on a proviso to Section 5 of the Indian Citizenship Act[1955] which requires the Union Home Ministry to lay down conditions to Indian citizenship acquired by foreigners by registration, condition based on the principle of reciprocity [see annexure 1 & 2]. In Ms Gandhis case, such of those conditions that apply to Indians on becoming citizens of Italy, would apply to her. The President reportedly had communicated to Ms. Gandhi on the afternoon of May 17, 2004, that if she insisted on being invited to form the government, he would want first to clarify, on a reference to the Supreme Court, whether in view of this proviso her appointment as PM could be successfully challenged in the court. It is fair to assume that this report of the Presidents decision is correct, since the President had before him my petition dated May 15, 2004 [see Annexure-3] making just that point--- that Ms. Gandhis citizenship is conditional, and in particular she cannot be the PM legally. The President had also given me an appointment at 12.45 PM on May 17, 2004 to explain my submissions in person, which I did. I also told him that I would challenge such a unconstitutional appointment in the Supreme Court just as I had in 2001 when Ms Jayalalitha was illegally sworn in as Chief Minister by the Tamil Nadu Governor. In that case, the Supreme Court had after hearing me and many other constitutional luminaries, upheld my contention that mere majority in the House is insufficient for being sworn in to a constitutional office, and that the constitutional appointing authority must ensure that there are no disqualifications as well. Ms. Jayalalitha had therefore to step down because she had been disqualified by her conviction in a trial court in the TANSI corruption case [filed by me as a private complaint]. She was subsequently acquitted by the Madras High Court, and hence became eligible the following year. I also cited to the President a 1962 Allahabad High Court case which held that this proviso in the Citizenship Act was binding and lawful.The nation by the stalling of Sonia becoming Prime Minister of India, has thus got an unexpected but temporary reprieve, a reprieve received not only because her citizenship of India by registration is not equal to one by birth even by Indian law, but a reprieve more because of the national security risk that was averted. To comprehend that risk, we must however first understand who Sonia Gandhi really is and what kind of danger she, her family and her friends in Italy, hold for Indias national security. Very little is known about the Mainos murky past, and the little that we are told about Sonia are lies. In other words, Indians do not know who Sonia really is or what she represents [see Annexure-4].Even for an Indian born citizen, we find it difficult to know a persons true background, but for a foreign-born it is extremely hard because of the remoteness of the place and the language barrier for most people, in this case---Italian. This note is thus an aide dmemoir of certain verifiable facts that taken together constitute the danger that Sonia Gandhi represents for the nation. And that is the real Sonia and what she represents.THREE LIESMs. Sonia Gandhis background as publicized by her and her Congress Party is based on three lies in order to hide the ugly reality of her life. First, her real name is Antonia not Sonia. This was revealed by the Italian Ambassador in New Delhi in a letter dated April 27, 1983 [see Annexure-5] to the Union Home Ministry which letter has not been made public. Antonia is Sonias real name as stated in her birth certificate.Sonia is the name given to her subsequently by her father, Stefano Maino [now deceased]. He had been a prisoner of war in Russia during World War II. Stefano had joined the Nazi army as a volunteer, as many Italian fascists had done. Sonia is a Russian not Italian name. While spending two years in a Russian jail, Sonias father had become quite pro-Soviet, especially after the liberating US army in Italy had confiscated all fascists properties including his. Second, Sonia was not born in Orbassano as she claims in her bio data submitted to Parliament on becoming MP, but in Luciana as stated in her birth certificate. She perhaps would like to hide the place of her birth because of her fathers connection with the Nazis and Mussolinis Fascists, and her familys continuing connections with the Nazi-Fascists underground that is still surviving in Italy since the end of the War. Luciana is where Nazi-Fascist network is headquartered, and is on the Italian-Swiss border. There can be no other explanation for this otherwise meaningless lie.Third, Sonia Gandhi has not studied beyond High School. But she has falsely claimed in her sworn affidavit [see Annexure-6] filed as a contesting candidate before the Rae Bareli Returning Officer in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, that she qualified and got a diploma in English from the prestigious University of Cambridge, UK. Earlier, in 1999 in her biographical data given under her signature to the Lok Sabha Secretariat and which was published in Parliaments Whos Who, she had made the same false claim [see Annexure-7]. But later she wrote to the Lok Sabha Speaker, after I had pointed it out to him in a written complaint of a Breach of Ethics of the Lok Sabha, that it was a typing mistake. This qualifies her for inclusion thus in the the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest typing mistake in history.The truth is that Ms. Gandhi has never studied in any college anywhere. She did go to a Catholic nun--run seminary school called Maria Ausiliatrice in Giaveno [15 kms from her adopted home town of Orbassabo]. Poverty those days had forced young Italian girls to go to such missionaries and then in their teens go to UK to get jobs as cleaning maids, waitresses and au pair. The Mainos were poor those days. Sonias father was a mason and mother a share cropper [now the family is worth at least $ 2 billion: (see Annexure-10)]. Sonia thus went to the town of Cambridge UK and first learnt some English in a teaching shop called Lennox School [which has since 1990 been wound up]. That is her education--- enough English language to get domestic help jobs. But since in Indian society, education is socially highly valued, thus to fool the Indian public, Sonia Gandhi wilfully lied about her qualifications in Parliamentary records [which is a Breach of Ethics Rules] and in a sworn affidavit [which is criminal offence under IPC, severe enough to disqualify her from being MP]. This also violated the spirit of the Supreme Court judgment requiring candidates to reveal their educational qualification on an affidavit [see Annexure-8]. These three lies indicate that Ms. Sonia Gandhi has something to hide, or has a hidden agenda for India to brazenly fool Indians for some ulterior purpose. We therefore need to find out more about her.SONIA'S INTRODUCTION INTO INDIAMs. Sonia Gandhi upon learning enough English, became a waitress in Varsity Restaurant in Cambridge town. She first met Rajiv when he came to the restaurant in 1965. Rajiv was a student in the University, but could not cope with the academic rigour for long. So he had to depart in 1966 for London where he was briefly in Imperial College of Engineering as a student. Sonia too moved to London, and according my information, got a job with an outfit run by Salman Thassir, a debonair Pakistani based in Lahore, and who has a export-import company headquartered in Dubai but who spends most of his time in London. This fits the profile of a ISI functionary. Obviously, Sonia made enough money in this job to loan Rajiv funds in London, who was living beyond his allowances [Indira herself had expressed anguish to me on this score in late 1965 when I was a young Harvard professor of economics. She had invited me to a private tea at the Guest House in Brandeis University where she was staying]. Rajivs letters to Sanjay filed in Delhi High Court by P.N. Lekhi [see Annexure-9] clearly indicate that he was in financial debt to Sonia because he requested Sanjay also in UK then, and who obviously had more access to money, to pay off the debt. However, Rajiv was not the only friend Sonia was seeing those days. Madhavrao Scindia and a German by name Stiegler are worth mentioning as other good friends of Sonia. Madhavraos friendship continued even after Sonias marriage to Rajiv. Scindia in 1982 was involved in a traffic accident near IIT, Delhi main gate while driving a car at 2 AM. Sonia was the only other passenger. Both were badly injured. A student of IIT who was burning midnight oil was out for a cup of coffee. He picked them up from the car, hailed an auto rickshaw and sent an injured Sonia to Mrs Indira Gandhis house since she insisted in not going to a hospital. Madhavrao had broken a leg and in too much pain to make any demand. He was taken to hospital by the Delhi Police who had arrived a little after Sonia had left the scene. In later years, Madhavrao had become privately critical of Sonia, and told some close friends about his apprehensions about her. It is a pity that he died in mysterious circumstances in an as yet uninvestigated aircrash of his private plane in the year 2001. Mani Shankar Aiyar and Shiela Dikshit were to be on that flight too, but were asked to stay behind at the last moment. The circumstance under which Rajiv hastily married Sonia in a Church in Orbassano is controversial, but that was his personal matter which has no public significance. What however is of public significance is that Indira Gandhi who was initially dead set against the marriage for reasons known to her, relented to hold a registry marriage with Hindu ceremonial trappings in New Delhi only after the pro-Soviet T.N. Kaul prevailed upon her to accept the marriage in the larger interest of cementing Indo-Soviet Friendship. Kaul would not have intervened unless the Soviet Union had not asked him to.SONIA'S KGB CONNECTIONSSuch has been the patronage from the beginning extended to Sonia Gandhi and her Italian family from the Soviets. When a Prime Minister of Indias son dates a girl in London, the KGB which valued Indo-Soviet relations, would naturally investigate her. They had, and found out that she was the daughter of Stefano, their old reliable Italian contact. Thus, Sonia married to Rajiv, meant deep access for the Soviets, into the household of the Indian Prime Minister. Hence cementing the Rajiv-Sonia relations was in the Soviet national interest and they went to work on it. And they did, through their moles in the Indira Gandhi camp. After her marriage to Rajiv, the Soviet connection with the Mainos was fortified and nurtured by generous financial help through commissions and kick-backs on every IndoSoviet trade deal and defence purchases. According to the respected Swiss magazine, Schweitzer Illustrate [November 1991 issue; see Annexure-10] Rajiv Gandhi had about $2 billion in numbered Swiss bank accountswhich Sonia inherited upon his assassination.Dr. Yevgenia Albats, Ph.D[Harvard], is a noted Russian scholar and journalist, and was a member of the KGB Commission set up by President Yeltsin in August 1991. She was privy to the Soviet intelligence files that documented these deals and KGB facilitation of the same. In her bookThe State Within a State: The KGB in the Soviet Union, she even gives the reference numbers of such intelligence files [see Annexure-11] which can now be accessed by any Indian government through a formal request to the Kremlin. The Russian Government in 1992 was confronted with the Albats disclosure by the media. The official spokesperson of the government confirmed the veracity of the disclosure [which was published in Hindu in 1992; see Annexure-12]. The spokesperson defended such financial payments as necessary in Soviet ideological interest. Part of the funds were used by the Maino family to fund loyal Congress party candidates in the General Elections [see Annexure-13]. When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, things changed for Ms. Sonia Gandhi. Her patron nation had been disbanded into 16 countries. The rump that became Russia was in a financial mess and disorder. So, Ms. Sonia Gandhi switched and became a supporter of another communist country much to the annoyance of the Russians.The national security ramification of this annoyance is now significant: The President of Russia today is Putin, a former dyed-in-the-wool KGB officer. Upon Dr. Manmohan Singhs government taking office, Russia called back its career diplomat Ambassador in New Delhi and immediately posted in his place, as the new Ambassador, a person who was the KGB station chief in New Delhi during the 1970s. In view of Dr. Albats revelation, it stands to reason that the new Ambassador would have known first hand about Sonias connections with the KGB. He may have in fact been her controller and local contact. The new Indian government today which is defacto Sonias, cannot afford to annoy him or even disregard Russian demands that come from him. The Sonia coterie will obviously seek to placate him so as not to risk exposure. Is this not a major national security risk for India and a delicate matter for the nations sovereignty? Of course, all Indians would like good normal and healthy relations with Russia. Who can forget their assistance to us in times of need? Todays Russia is the residual legatee of that Soviet Union which helped India. But just because of that, should we tolerate those in our government set up having clandestine links with a foreign spy agency? In the United States, the government did not tolerate an American spying for Israel even though the two countries are as close as any two countries can be. National security and friendship are as different as chalk and cheese.In December 2001, I had filed a Writ Petition in the Delhi High Court with the photocopies of the KGB documents, and sought a CBI investigation which the Vajpayee Government was stoutly refusing. Earlier, Minister of State for CBI, Vasundara Raje[now Rajasthan CM], on my letter dated March 3, 2001, had ordered the CBI to investigate. But after Sonia Gandhi and her party stalled the proceedings of Parliament on this issue, the then Prime Minister Vajpayee overruled and cancelled Vasundaras direction to the CBI.The Delhi High Court in May 2002 issued a direction to the CBI to ascertain from Russia the truth of my charges. The CBI procrastinated for two years, and finally told the Court that without an FIR registered, the Russians will not entertain any such query. But who stopped the CBI from registering an FIR? The Vajpayee government! And why? Thereby hangs another tale. The next hearing of the case is imminent. But now Sonia is in the drivers seat, and the CBI has been reduced in independence even further.SONIA'S CONTEMPT FOR LAWS OF INDIAAfter Sonia married Rajiv, she and her Italian family aided by friend and Snam Progettis New Delhi resident Ottavio Quattrocchi, went about minting money with scant regard for Indian laws and treasures. Within a few years the Mainos rose from utter poverty to become billionaires [see Annexure-14]. There was no area that was left out for the rip-off. On November 19, 1974, as fresh entrant to Parliament, I had asked the then Prime Minister Ms. Indira Gandhi on the floor of the House if her daughter-in-law, Sonia Gandhi, was acting as an insurance agent of a public sector insurance company[Oriental Fire&Insurance], giving the Prime Ministers official residence as her business address, and using undue influence to get insured the officers of the PMO, while remaining as an Italian citizen[thus violating FERA]. There was an uproar in Parliament, but Mrs. Indira Gandhi had no alternative but to cut her losses. She made a rare admission in a written reply a few days later that it indeed was so, and that it was by mistake, but that Sonia had resigned from her insurance agency[after my question]. But Sonia was incorrigible. Her contempt for Indian law continued to manifest. The Supreme Court Justice A.C. Gupta Commission set up by the Janata Party government in 1977 came out with a voluminous report on the Maruti Company then owned by the Gandhi family, and has listed eight violations of FERA, Companies Act, and Foreigners Registration Act by Sonia Gandhi. She was never prosecuted, but can still be prosecuted because under Indian law, economic crimes are not subject to the statute of limitation. In January 1980, Indira Gandhi returned as Prime Minister. The first thing Sonia did was to enroll herself as a voter. This was a gross violation of the law, enough to cause cancellation of her visa [since she was admittedly an Italian citizen then]. There was some hullabaloo in the press about it, so the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer got her name deleted in 1982. But in January 1983, she again enrolled herself as a voter even while as a foreigner [she first applied for citizenship in April 1983] (see Annexure-15). More recently, A.G. Noorani is his book: Citizens Rights, Judges, and State Accountability records [page 318] that Ms. Sonia Gandhi had made available to a foreign national the secret papers of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru obviously illegally in her possession, and comments as follows:Sonia Gandhi has no right to hold them in her possession at all, let alone decide whom to accord permission for access to themSuch is her revealed disdain for Indian laws and that is her mindset even today. She suffers from a neo-imperialist mentality.SONIA GANDHI IS THE MODERN ROBERT CLIVEThe bottom line observed in Sonias mindset is that she can disregard Indian laws with impunity. If cornered or if she becomes vulnerable to prosecution, she can always run back to Italy. In Peru, President Fujimori who all along claimed to be born Peruvian, when faced with a corruption charge fled to Japan with his loot and reclaimed his Japanese citizenship. That is Sonias bottom line fall-back option too. In 1977, when the Janata Party defeated the Congress at the polls, and formed the government, it widely known and published that Sonia with her two children abandoned Indira Gandhi, and ran to the Italian Embassy in New Delhi and hid there. Rajiv Gandhi was a government servant then[as an Indian Airlines pilot], but he too tagged along and hid in that foreign embassy ! Such was her baneful influence on him. Rajiv did snap out Sonias influence after 1989, but alas he was assassinated before he could rectify the situation. Those close to Rajiv knew that he was planning set things right about Sonia after the 1991 elections. He held her to blame for all the financial scandals that led to his defeat at the 1989 polls. She knew of it too because he had told her on his trip to Soviet Union in February 1991. Ever wonder why Sonias closest advisers are those whom Rajiv literally hated? Ambika Soni is one such name. Ever wonder why she has asked the President of India to set aside on a mercy petition the Supreme Court judgment directing that Rajiv Gandhis LTTE killers be hanged, when she was not similiarly moved for Satwant Singh who killed Indira Gandhi or even recently for Dhanajoy Chattopadhyaya ? The explanation for this special consideration for the LTTE perhaps lies in what Rajiv had told her about their future. May be therefore Sonia feels obliged to the LTTE for the assassination. More on this later.Those who have no love for India will not hesitate to plunder her treasures. Mohammed Ghori, Nadir Shah, and the British scum in the East India Company such as Robert Clive, made no secret of it. But Sonia Gandhi has been more discreet, but as greedy, in her looting of Indian treasures. When Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were Prime Ministers, not a day passed when the PMs security did not go to the New Delhi, or Chennai international airport to send crates and crates of Indian antiques and other treasures, unchecked by customs, to Rome. Air India and Alitalia were the chosen carriers. For organizing all this, Mr. Arjun Singh first as CM, later as Union Minister in charge of Culture, was her hatchet man.Indian temple sculpture of gods and goddesses, antiques, pichwai paintings, shatoosh shawls, coins, and you name it, were transported to Italy to be first displayed in two shops [see Annexure-16] owned by her sister, Anuskha alias Alessandra Maino Vinci. These shops located in blue-collar areas of Rivolta[shop name: Etnica] and Orbassano [shop name: Ganpati] did little business because which blue collar Italian wants to buy Indian antiques ? The shops were there to make false bills, and thereafter these treasures were taken to London for auction by Sothebys and Christies. Some of this ill-gotten money from auction went into the bank accounts of Rahul Gandhi in the National Westminister Bank and Hongkong & Shanghai Bank, London branches, but most of it found its way into the Gandhi family account in the Bank of America in Cayman Islands. Rahuls expenses and tuition fees for the one year he was at Harvard, was paid from that Cayman Island account [see Annexures-17]. What kind of people are these Gandhi-Mainos that bite the very hand of Bharat Mata that fed them and gave them a good life? How can the nation trust or tolerate such greedy thieves of national treasures?Since I failed to persuade the Vajpayee government to defend Indias treasures from plunder by the Mainos, I approached the Delhi High Court in a PIL. The first Bench of the court issued notice to the Government, but since the Indian government dragged its feet, the Court directed the CBI to seek Interpols and Italian governments help. The Italian government justifiably asked for a Letter Rogatory for which a FIR is a pre-requisite. But the Interpol did oblige and submitted two voluminous reports on the shops which the Court directed the CBI to hand over to me. But CBI has so far refused, and has claimed privilege! This question will be argued out at the next hearing of my PIL. The CBI has also been caught lying in court by telling the judges that Alessandra Maino is a name of a man, and Via Bellini 14, Orbassano is a name of a village[not the street address of the Mainos residence]. Although the CBI counsel had to apologise later to the court stating he had made a mistake, he has been promoted to Additional Solicitor General by the new government! Why was he appointed as the CBIs counsel by the Vajpayee government in the first place? The Vajpayee-Sonia mutual assistance pact is thus in full view in this episode. But the most sinister aspect of Sonia Gandhis links is her connection with terrorists. I am still working on it, but she has had long connection with the Habash group of Palestinians [PFLP], and has funded Palestinian families that lost their kith and kin in a suicide bombing or hijacking episode. This fact, Rajiv Gandhi himself told me and was confirmed to me [the funding aspect] by Yassir Arafat when I met him in Tunis on October 17, 1990 at the request of Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv and I were good friends from 1978, but became very close friends after V.P. Singh had betrayed him in 1987. We met practically every day, mostly in the early hours from 1AM to 4AM, discussed, chatted and gossiped on every topic. It was at my suggestion that Rajiv made Chandrashekhar the PM. And contrary to public impression, he was not mainly responsible for fall of Chandrashekar government[of which I was a Minister].Besides the Palestinian extremists, the Maino family have had extensive business dealings with Saddam Hussein [see Annexure-18], and surprisingly since 1984 with the LTTE [the Tamil Tigers]. Sonias mother Paola Predebon Maino, and businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi are the main contacts with the Tigers. The mother used the LTTE for money laundering and Quattrocchi for selling weapons to earn commissions. Sonias conduit to the LTTE has been and is through Arjun Singh who uses Bangalore as the nodal point for contact.There is a string of circumstantial evidence pointing to the prima facie possibility that the Maino family may have contracted with the LTTE to kill Rajiv Gandhi. The family may have assured the LTTE that nothing would happen to them because they would ensure it is blamed on the Sikhs or the evidence so much fudged that no court would convict them[ the LTTE intercepted transcripts show this expectation of the LTTE]. But D.R. Karthikeyan of the CBI who led the SIT investigation got the support of Narasimha Rao, cracked the case, and succeeded in getting the LTTE convicted in the trial court, which conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1999. Although on the involvement of some members of the Congress Party in the assassination, DRK soft peddled it ignoring a number of leads perhaps because he did not want political controversy to put road blocks on his investigation as a whole. The Justice J. S. Verma Commission, which was set up as the last official act of the Chandrashekhar government before demitting office on June 21, 1991, did find that the Congress leaders had disrupted the security arrangements for the Sriperumbudur meeting. The Commission wanted further probe into it but the Rao government rejected that demand. In the meantime under Sonias pressure, the Jain Commission was set up by the Rao government, which tried to muddy the waters and thus exonerate the LTTE. But the trial court judgment convicting the LTTE came earlier than the Commission could conclude, and that sinister effort therefore too failed. Nowadays, Sonia is quite unabashed in having political alliance with those who like MDMK, PMK, and DMK praise Rajiv Gandhis killers. No Indian widow would ever do that. Such circumstances are many, and raise a doubt. My investigations into Sonias involvement in Rajivs assassination is therefore necessary. I am also author of a best seller titled Assassination Of Rajiv GandhiUnasked Questions and Unanswered Queries[published by Konark in 2000] in which I have given some indications of this possible conspiracy.Is it not significant that the political career graph of Sonia Gandhi advances concomitantly with a series of assassinations and apparently accidental deaths? How did Sanjays plane on June 23, 1980 nosedive to a crash and yet the plane fuselage failed to explode upon impact? There was no fuel ! How was that possible since flight register shows full tank before take-off ? Why was there no inquiry conducted ? Is it not a fact that Indira Gandhi died because of loss of blood from the wounds and not directly due to a bullet impacting her head or heart ? Then is it not strange that Sonia had insisted that the bleeding Indira be driven to Lohia Hospital-- in the opposite direction to AIIMS which had a contingency protocol set up for precisely such an event ? And after reaching Lohia Hospital, did not Sonia change her mind and demand that they all drive to AIIMS thus losing 24 valuable minutes ? The same kind of mystery surrounds the sudden deaths of Sonias other political roadblocks such as Rajesh Pilot, Jitendra Prasad, and Madhavrao Scindia. Such untimely deaths happened in the dark ages in Italy. Should we allow it to happen in India like dumb cattle going to slaughter?WHAT PATRIOTIC INDIANS CAN DOWe have to ensure that the Maino clan does not stay in power. Dr. Manmohan Singh may be PM, which is a small relief, but he is not a fighter. The real power in government today is wielded by the Maino mafia gang. Can they be dethroned? I argue that they must be, for Indias integrity and democracy. In Indian democracy, other than by losing majority, only a shocking scandal can unseat a government. Todays priority is however not for toppling the Congress government as such, since Manmohan Singh is a decent and scholarly person, but in driving the Maino clan out of India. If the only way that can be done is by toppling the Singh government, then so be it. But the successor government should be such that it will not protect Sonia and her clan as Vajpayees did. It will although not be long before Sonia will give Manmohan Singh marching orders, and he will march out meekly. We should not expect him to resist. Thus time with patriotic Indians is limited.With Sonias defacto government in place, it is also unrealistic to expect that I can get an early victory in the courts on the KGB and antique smuggling cases. The most potent scandal at hand, therefore, that can dislodge the Maino clan[including Rahul and Priyanka] lies in exposing their existing Italian citizenship. That will galvanise the people.In 1992, Sonia had revived her citizenship of Italy under Article 17 of the Italian Citizenship Law [Act 91 of 1992]. Rahul and Priyanka were born Italian citizens because Sonia was Italian when she gave birth to them[Italian law based on jure sanguinis]. (see Annexure-19) Hence, they continue be Italians since they have never renounced their citizenship upon becoming 21 years old. Both, Rahul and Priyanaka have been traveling abroad on Italian passports. They may now acquire Venezuela passports too, since Rahul Gandhis wife, Veronica, is a Venezuelan. (See annexure- 20) That means one more foreign bahu for us tolerant Indians. The Maino-Gandhis are certainly getting Indian society globalised in their own selfish way. To end Bharat Matas shame and pain, what can patriotic Indians do in a democracy?As a first step there is an urgent need to document the facts about their citizenship on notarized paper, for which we need to set up a network in London, Milan, Hongkong, and in Venezuela. Those persuaded by my above stated facts and arguments may join in and help set up this network. Other steps can come later once this is accomplished.
Patriotic Indians should thank the President of India for having the courage, by citing a legal hitch, to dissuade Ms. Sonia Gandhi from staking her claim to form the government on May 17th this year. She therefore, despite all the contrived media hype, did not, and could not, become the Prime Minister of 1 billion plus people of India. It can now be said that Bharat Mata has been saved from a monumental, devastating, and permanent injury to her national interest and to the patriotic psyche of Indians. Therefore, it should be the resolve of every Indian to make any and every effort that can be made in a democracy, to ensure that Ms. Sonia Gandhi is kept permanently out of reckoning for any public office. For those who instinctively understand that imperative, this Note has been written to explain the factual basis for this rational determination, and suggest what patriotic Indians can do now to implement that democratic and patriotic resolution.My opposition to Ms. Sonia Gandhi is not merely because she is Italian---born, although that by itself is a major issue. In other democratic countries, including in Italy, such an issue [of foreign-born aspiring to be head of government]would not even arise at all because the issue has already been settled by incorporating into law that a person cannot hold the highest public office unless he or she is native born. In India there is no such law but the President, according my knowledge, has correctly acted on a proviso to Section 5 of the Indian Citizenship Act[1955] which requires the Union Home Ministry to lay down conditions to Indian citizenship acquired by foreigners by registration, condition based on the principle of reciprocity [see annexure 1 & 2]. In Ms Gandhis case, such of those conditions that apply to Indians on becoming citizens of Italy, would apply to her. The President reportedly had communicated to Ms. Gandhi on the afternoon of May 17, 2004, that if she insisted on being invited to form the government, he would want first to clarify, on a reference to the Supreme Court, whether in view of this proviso her appointment as PM could be successfully challenged in the court. It is fair to assume that this report of the Presidents decision is correct, since the President had before him my petition dated May 15, 2004 [see Annexure-3] making just that point--- that Ms. Gandhis citizenship is conditional, and in particular she cannot be the PM legally. The President had also given me an appointment at 12.45 PM on May 17, 2004 to explain my submissions in person, which I did. I also told him that I would challenge such a unconstitutional appointment in the Supreme Court just as I had in 2001 when Ms Jayalalitha was illegally sworn in as Chief Minister by the Tamil Nadu Governor. In that case, the Supreme Court had after hearing me and many other constitutional luminaries, upheld my contention that mere majority in the House is insufficient for being sworn in to a constitutional office, and that the constitutional appointing authority must ensure that there are no disqualifications as well. Ms. Jayalalitha had therefore to step down because she had been disqualified by her conviction in a trial court in the TANSI corruption case [filed by me as a private complaint]. She was subsequently acquitted by the Madras High Court, and hence became eligible the following year. I also cited to the President a 1962 Allahabad High Court case which held that this proviso in the Citizenship Act was binding and lawful.The nation by the stalling of Sonia becoming Prime Minister of India, has thus got an unexpected but temporary reprieve, a reprieve received not only because her citizenship of India by registration is not equal to one by birth even by Indian law, but a reprieve more because of the national security risk that was averted. To comprehend that risk, we must however first understand who Sonia Gandhi really is and what kind of danger she, her family and her friends in Italy, hold for Indias national security. Very little is known about the Mainos murky past, and the little that we are told about Sonia are lies. In other words, Indians do not know who Sonia really is or what she represents [see Annexure-4].Even for an Indian born citizen, we find it difficult to know a persons true background, but for a foreign-born it is extremely hard because of the remoteness of the place and the language barrier for most people, in this case---Italian. This note is thus an aide dmemoir of certain verifiable facts that taken together constitute the danger that Sonia Gandhi represents for the nation. And that is the real Sonia and what she represents.THREE LIESMs. Sonia Gandhis background as publicized by her and her Congress Party is based on three lies in order to hide the ugly reality of her life. First, her real name is Antonia not Sonia. This was revealed by the Italian Ambassador in New Delhi in a letter dated April 27, 1983 [see Annexure-5] to the Union Home Ministry which letter has not been made public. Antonia is Sonias real name as stated in her birth certificate.Sonia is the name given to her subsequently by her father, Stefano Maino [now deceased]. He had been a prisoner of war in Russia during World War II. Stefano had joined the Nazi army as a volunteer, as many Italian fascists had done. Sonia is a Russian not Italian name. While spending two years in a Russian jail, Sonias father had become quite pro-Soviet, especially after the liberating US army in Italy had confiscated all fascists properties including his. Second, Sonia was not born in Orbassano as she claims in her bio data submitted to Parliament on becoming MP, but in Luciana as stated in her birth certificate. She perhaps would like to hide the place of her birth because of her fathers connection with the Nazis and Mussolinis Fascists, and her familys continuing connections with the Nazi-Fascists underground that is still surviving in Italy since the end of the War. Luciana is where Nazi-Fascist network is headquartered, and is on the Italian-Swiss border. There can be no other explanation for this otherwise meaningless lie.Third, Sonia Gandhi has not studied beyond High School. But she has falsely claimed in her sworn affidavit [see Annexure-6] filed as a contesting candidate before the Rae Bareli Returning Officer in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, that she qualified and got a diploma in English from the prestigious University of Cambridge, UK. Earlier, in 1999 in her biographical data given under her signature to the Lok Sabha Secretariat and which was published in Parliaments Whos Who, she had made the same false claim [see Annexure-7]. But later she wrote to the Lok Sabha Speaker, after I had pointed it out to him in a written complaint of a Breach of Ethics of the Lok Sabha, that it was a typing mistake. This qualifies her for inclusion thus in the the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest typing mistake in history.The truth is that Ms. Gandhi has never studied in any college anywhere. She did go to a Catholic nun--run seminary school called Maria Ausiliatrice in Giaveno [15 kms from her adopted home town of Orbassabo]. Poverty those days had forced young Italian girls to go to such missionaries and then in their teens go to UK to get jobs as cleaning maids, waitresses and au pair. The Mainos were poor those days. Sonias father was a mason and mother a share cropper [now the family is worth at least $ 2 billion: (see Annexure-10)]. Sonia thus went to the town of Cambridge UK and first learnt some English in a teaching shop called Lennox School [which has since 1990 been wound up]. That is her education--- enough English language to get domestic help jobs. But since in Indian society, education is socially highly valued, thus to fool the Indian public, Sonia Gandhi wilfully lied about her qualifications in Parliamentary records [which is a Breach of Ethics Rules] and in a sworn affidavit [which is criminal offence under IPC, severe enough to disqualify her from being MP]. This also violated the spirit of the Supreme Court judgment requiring candidates to reveal their educational qualification on an affidavit [see Annexure-8]. These three lies indicate that Ms. Sonia Gandhi has something to hide, or has a hidden agenda for India to brazenly fool Indians for some ulterior purpose. We therefore need to find out more about her.SONIA'S INTRODUCTION INTO INDIAMs. Sonia Gandhi upon learning enough English, became a waitress in Varsity Restaurant in Cambridge town. She first met Rajiv when he came to the restaurant in 1965. Rajiv was a student in the University, but could not cope with the academic rigour for long. So he had to depart in 1966 for London where he was briefly in Imperial College of Engineering as a student. Sonia too moved to London, and according my information, got a job with an outfit run by Salman Thassir, a debonair Pakistani based in Lahore, and who has a export-import company headquartered in Dubai but who spends most of his time in London. This fits the profile of a ISI functionary. Obviously, Sonia made enough money in this job to loan Rajiv funds in London, who was living beyond his allowances [Indira herself had expressed anguish to me on this score in late 1965 when I was a young Harvard professor of economics. She had invited me to a private tea at the Guest House in Brandeis University where she was staying]. Rajivs letters to Sanjay filed in Delhi High Court by P.N. Lekhi [see Annexure-9] clearly indicate that he was in financial debt to Sonia because he requested Sanjay also in UK then, and who obviously had more access to money, to pay off the debt. However, Rajiv was not the only friend Sonia was seeing those days. Madhavrao Scindia and a German by name Stiegler are worth mentioning as other good friends of Sonia. Madhavraos friendship continued even after Sonias marriage to Rajiv. Scindia in 1982 was involved in a traffic accident near IIT, Delhi main gate while driving a car at 2 AM. Sonia was the only other passenger. Both were badly injured. A student of IIT who was burning midnight oil was out for a cup of coffee. He picked them up from the car, hailed an auto rickshaw and sent an injured Sonia to Mrs Indira Gandhis house since she insisted in not going to a hospital. Madhavrao had broken a leg and in too much pain to make any demand. He was taken to hospital by the Delhi Police who had arrived a little after Sonia had left the scene. In later years, Madhavrao had become privately critical of Sonia, and told some close friends about his apprehensions about her. It is a pity that he died in mysterious circumstances in an as yet uninvestigated aircrash of his private plane in the year 2001. Mani Shankar Aiyar and Shiela Dikshit were to be on that flight too, but were asked to stay behind at the last moment. The circumstance under which Rajiv hastily married Sonia in a Church in Orbassano is controversial, but that was his personal matter which has no public significance. What however is of public significance is that Indira Gandhi who was initially dead set against the marriage for reasons known to her, relented to hold a registry marriage with Hindu ceremonial trappings in New Delhi only after the pro-Soviet T.N. Kaul prevailed upon her to accept the marriage in the larger interest of cementing Indo-Soviet Friendship. Kaul would not have intervened unless the Soviet Union had not asked him to.SONIA'S KGB CONNECTIONSSuch has been the patronage from the beginning extended to Sonia Gandhi and her Italian family from the Soviets. When a Prime Minister of Indias son dates a girl in London, the KGB which valued Indo-Soviet relations, would naturally investigate her. They had, and found out that she was the daughter of Stefano, their old reliable Italian contact. Thus, Sonia married to Rajiv, meant deep access for the Soviets, into the household of the Indian Prime Minister. Hence cementing the Rajiv-Sonia relations was in the Soviet national interest and they went to work on it. And they did, through their moles in the Indira Gandhi camp. After her marriage to Rajiv, the Soviet connection with the Mainos was fortified and nurtured by generous financial help through commissions and kick-backs on every IndoSoviet trade deal and defence purchases. According to the respected Swiss magazine, Schweitzer Illustrate [November 1991 issue; see Annexure-10] Rajiv Gandhi had about $2 billion in numbered Swiss bank accountswhich Sonia inherited upon his assassination.Dr. Yevgenia Albats, Ph.D[Harvard], is a noted Russian scholar and journalist, and was a member of the KGB Commission set up by President Yeltsin in August 1991. She was privy to the Soviet intelligence files that documented these deals and KGB facilitation of the same. In her bookThe State Within a State: The KGB in the Soviet Union, she even gives the reference numbers of such intelligence files [see Annexure-11] which can now be accessed by any Indian government through a formal request to the Kremlin. The Russian Government in 1992 was confronted with the Albats disclosure by the media. The official spokesperson of the government confirmed the veracity of the disclosure [which was published in Hindu in 1992; see Annexure-12]. The spokesperson defended such financial payments as necessary in Soviet ideological interest. Part of the funds were used by the Maino family to fund loyal Congress party candidates in the General Elections [see Annexure-13]. When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, things changed for Ms. Sonia Gandhi. Her patron nation had been disbanded into 16 countries. The rump that became Russia was in a financial mess and disorder. So, Ms. Sonia Gandhi switched and became a supporter of another communist country much to the annoyance of the Russians.The national security ramification of this annoyance is now significant: The President of Russia today is Putin, a former dyed-in-the-wool KGB officer. Upon Dr. Manmohan Singhs government taking office, Russia called back its career diplomat Ambassador in New Delhi and immediately posted in his place, as the new Ambassador, a person who was the KGB station chief in New Delhi during the 1970s. In view of Dr. Albats revelation, it stands to reason that the new Ambassador would have known first hand about Sonias connections with the KGB. He may have in fact been her controller and local contact. The new Indian government today which is defacto Sonias, cannot afford to annoy him or even disregard Russian demands that come from him. The Sonia coterie will obviously seek to placate him so as not to risk exposure. Is this not a major national security risk for India and a delicate matter for the nations sovereignty? Of course, all Indians would like good normal and healthy relations with Russia. Who can forget their assistance to us in times of need? Todays Russia is the residual legatee of that Soviet Union which helped India. But just because of that, should we tolerate those in our government set up having clandestine links with a foreign spy agency? In the United States, the government did not tolerate an American spying for Israel even though the two countries are as close as any two countries can be. National security and friendship are as different as chalk and cheese.In December 2001, I had filed a Writ Petition in the Delhi High Court with the photocopies of the KGB documents, and sought a CBI investigation which the Vajpayee Government was stoutly refusing. Earlier, Minister of State for CBI, Vasundara Raje[now Rajasthan CM], on my letter dated March 3, 2001, had ordered the CBI to investigate. But after Sonia Gandhi and her party stalled the proceedings of Parliament on this issue, the then Prime Minister Vajpayee overruled and cancelled Vasundaras direction to the CBI.The Delhi High Court in May 2002 issued a direction to the CBI to ascertain from Russia the truth of my charges. The CBI procrastinated for two years, and finally told the Court that without an FIR registered, the Russians will not entertain any such query. But who stopped the CBI from registering an FIR? The Vajpayee government! And why? Thereby hangs another tale. The next hearing of the case is imminent. But now Sonia is in the drivers seat, and the CBI has been reduced in independence even further.SONIA'S CONTEMPT FOR LAWS OF INDIAAfter Sonia married Rajiv, she and her Italian family aided by friend and Snam Progettis New Delhi resident Ottavio Quattrocchi, went about minting money with scant regard for Indian laws and treasures. Within a few years the Mainos rose from utter poverty to become billionaires [see Annexure-14]. There was no area that was left out for the rip-off. On November 19, 1974, as fresh entrant to Parliament, I had asked the then Prime Minister Ms. Indira Gandhi on the floor of the House if her daughter-in-law, Sonia Gandhi, was acting as an insurance agent of a public sector insurance company[Oriental Fire&Insurance], giving the Prime Ministers official residence as her business address, and using undue influence to get insured the officers of the PMO, while remaining as an Italian citizen[thus violating FERA]. There was an uproar in Parliament, but Mrs. Indira Gandhi had no alternative but to cut her losses. She made a rare admission in a written reply a few days later that it indeed was so, and that it was by mistake, but that Sonia had resigned from her insurance agency[after my question]. But Sonia was incorrigible. Her contempt for Indian law continued to manifest. The Supreme Court Justice A.C. Gupta Commission set up by the Janata Party government in 1977 came out with a voluminous report on the Maruti Company then owned by the Gandhi family, and has listed eight violations of FERA, Companies Act, and Foreigners Registration Act by Sonia Gandhi. She was never prosecuted, but can still be prosecuted because under Indian law, economic crimes are not subject to the statute of limitation. In January 1980, Indira Gandhi returned as Prime Minister. The first thing Sonia did was to enroll herself as a voter. This was a gross violation of the law, enough to cause cancellation of her visa [since she was admittedly an Italian citizen then]. There was some hullabaloo in the press about it, so the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer got her name deleted in 1982. But in January 1983, she again enrolled herself as a voter even while as a foreigner [she first applied for citizenship in April 1983] (see Annexure-15). More recently, A.G. Noorani is his book: Citizens Rights, Judges, and State Accountability records [page 318] that Ms. Sonia Gandhi had made available to a foreign national the secret papers of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru obviously illegally in her possession, and comments as follows:Sonia Gandhi has no right to hold them in her possession at all, let alone decide whom to accord permission for access to themSuch is her revealed disdain for Indian laws and that is her mindset even today. She suffers from a neo-imperialist mentality.SONIA GANDHI IS THE MODERN ROBERT CLIVEThe bottom line observed in Sonias mindset is that she can disregard Indian laws with impunity. If cornered or if she becomes vulnerable to prosecution, she can always run back to Italy. In Peru, President Fujimori who all along claimed to be born Peruvian, when faced with a corruption charge fled to Japan with his loot and reclaimed his Japanese citizenship. That is Sonias bottom line fall-back option too. In 1977, when the Janata Party defeated the Congress at the polls, and formed the government, it widely known and published that Sonia with her two children abandoned Indira Gandhi, and ran to the Italian Embassy in New Delhi and hid there. Rajiv Gandhi was a government servant then[as an Indian Airlines pilot], but he too tagged along and hid in that foreign embassy ! Such was her baneful influence on him. Rajiv did snap out Sonias influence after 1989, but alas he was assassinated before he could rectify the situation. Those close to Rajiv knew that he was planning set things right about Sonia after the 1991 elections. He held her to blame for all the financial scandals that led to his defeat at the 1989 polls. She knew of it too because he had told her on his trip to Soviet Union in February 1991. Ever wonder why Sonias closest advisers are those whom Rajiv literally hated? Ambika Soni is one such name. Ever wonder why she has asked the President of India to set aside on a mercy petition the Supreme Court judgment directing that Rajiv Gandhis LTTE killers be hanged, when she was not similiarly moved for Satwant Singh who killed Indira Gandhi or even recently for Dhanajoy Chattopadhyaya ? The explanation for this special consideration for the LTTE perhaps lies in what Rajiv had told her about their future. May be therefore Sonia feels obliged to the LTTE for the assassination. More on this later.Those who have no love for India will not hesitate to plunder her treasures. Mohammed Ghori, Nadir Shah, and the British scum in the East India Company such as Robert Clive, made no secret of it. But Sonia Gandhi has been more discreet, but as greedy, in her looting of Indian treasures. When Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were Prime Ministers, not a day passed when the PMs security did not go to the New Delhi, or Chennai international airport to send crates and crates of Indian antiques and other treasures, unchecked by customs, to Rome. Air India and Alitalia were the chosen carriers. For organizing all this, Mr. Arjun Singh first as CM, later as Union Minister in charge of Culture, was her hatchet man.Indian temple sculpture of gods and goddesses, antiques, pichwai paintings, shatoosh shawls, coins, and you name it, were transported to Italy to be first displayed in two shops [see Annexure-16] owned by her sister, Anuskha alias Alessandra Maino Vinci. These shops located in blue-collar areas of Rivolta[shop name: Etnica] and Orbassano [shop name: Ganpati] did little business because which blue collar Italian wants to buy Indian antiques ? The shops were there to make false bills, and thereafter these treasures were taken to London for auction by Sothebys and Christies. Some of this ill-gotten money from auction went into the bank accounts of Rahul Gandhi in the National Westminister Bank and Hongkong & Shanghai Bank, London branches, but most of it found its way into the Gandhi family account in the Bank of America in Cayman Islands. Rahuls expenses and tuition fees for the one year he was at Harvard, was paid from that Cayman Island account [see Annexures-17]. What kind of people are these Gandhi-Mainos that bite the very hand of Bharat Mata that fed them and gave them a good life? How can the nation trust or tolerate such greedy thieves of national treasures?Since I failed to persuade the Vajpayee government to defend Indias treasures from plunder by the Mainos, I approached the Delhi High Court in a PIL. The first Bench of the court issued notice to the Government, but since the Indian government dragged its feet, the Court directed the CBI to seek Interpols and Italian governments help. The Italian government justifiably asked for a Letter Rogatory for which a FIR is a pre-requisite. But the Interpol did oblige and submitted two voluminous reports on the shops which the Court directed the CBI to hand over to me. But CBI has so far refused, and has claimed privilege! This question will be argued out at the next hearing of my PIL. The CBI has also been caught lying in court by telling the judges that Alessandra Maino is a name of a man, and Via Bellini 14, Orbassano is a name of a village[not the street address of the Mainos residence]. Although the CBI counsel had to apologise later to the court stating he had made a mistake, he has been promoted to Additional Solicitor General by the new government! Why was he appointed as the CBIs counsel by the Vajpayee government in the first place? The Vajpayee-Sonia mutual assistance pact is thus in full view in this episode. But the most sinister aspect of Sonia Gandhis links is her connection with terrorists. I am still working on it, but she has had long connection with the Habash group of Palestinians [PFLP], and has funded Palestinian families that lost their kith and kin in a suicide bombing or hijacking episode. This fact, Rajiv Gandhi himself told me and was confirmed to me [the funding aspect] by Yassir Arafat when I met him in Tunis on October 17, 1990 at the request of Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv and I were good friends from 1978, but became very close friends after V.P. Singh had betrayed him in 1987. We met practically every day, mostly in the early hours from 1AM to 4AM, discussed, chatted and gossiped on every topic. It was at my suggestion that Rajiv made Chandrashekhar the PM. And contrary to public impression, he was not mainly responsible for fall of Chandrashekar government[of which I was a Minister].Besides the Palestinian extremists, the Maino family have had extensive business dealings with Saddam Hussein [see Annexure-18], and surprisingly since 1984 with the LTTE [the Tamil Tigers]. Sonias mother Paola Predebon Maino, and businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi are the main contacts with the Tigers. The mother used the LTTE for money laundering and Quattrocchi for selling weapons to earn commissions. Sonias conduit to the LTTE has been and is through Arjun Singh who uses Bangalore as the nodal point for contact.There is a string of circumstantial evidence pointing to the prima facie possibility that the Maino family may have contracted with the LTTE to kill Rajiv Gandhi. The family may have assured the LTTE that nothing would happen to them because they would ensure it is blamed on the Sikhs or the evidence so much fudged that no court would convict them[ the LTTE intercepted transcripts show this expectation of the LTTE]. But D.R. Karthikeyan of the CBI who led the SIT investigation got the support of Narasimha Rao, cracked the case, and succeeded in getting the LTTE convicted in the trial court, which conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1999. Although on the involvement of some members of the Congress Party in the assassination, DRK soft peddled it ignoring a number of leads perhaps because he did not want political controversy to put road blocks on his investigation as a whole. The Justice J. S. Verma Commission, which was set up as the last official act of the Chandrashekhar government before demitting office on June 21, 1991, did find that the Congress leaders had disrupted the security arrangements for the Sriperumbudur meeting. The Commission wanted further probe into it but the Rao government rejected that demand. In the meantime under Sonias pressure, the Jain Commission was set up by the Rao government, which tried to muddy the waters and thus exonerate the LTTE. But the trial court judgment convicting the LTTE came earlier than the Commission could conclude, and that sinister effort therefore too failed. Nowadays, Sonia is quite unabashed in having political alliance with those who like MDMK, PMK, and DMK praise Rajiv Gandhis killers. No Indian widow would ever do that. Such circumstances are many, and raise a doubt. My investigations into Sonias involvement in Rajivs assassination is therefore necessary. I am also author of a best seller titled Assassination Of Rajiv GandhiUnasked Questions and Unanswered Queries[published by Konark in 2000] in which I have given some indications of this possible conspiracy.Is it not significant that the political career graph of Sonia Gandhi advances concomitantly with a series of assassinations and apparently accidental deaths? How did Sanjays plane on June 23, 1980 nosedive to a crash and yet the plane fuselage failed to explode upon impact? There was no fuel ! How was that possible since flight register shows full tank before take-off ? Why was there no inquiry conducted ? Is it not a fact that Indira Gandhi died because of loss of blood from the wounds and not directly due to a bullet impacting her head or heart ? Then is it not strange that Sonia had insisted that the bleeding Indira be driven to Lohia Hospital-- in the opposite direction to AIIMS which had a contingency protocol set up for precisely such an event ? And after reaching Lohia Hospital, did not Sonia change her mind and demand that they all drive to AIIMS thus losing 24 valuable minutes ? The same kind of mystery surrounds the sudden deaths of Sonias other political roadblocks such as Rajesh Pilot, Jitendra Prasad, and Madhavrao Scindia. Such untimely deaths happened in the dark ages in Italy. Should we allow it to happen in India like dumb cattle going to slaughter?WHAT PATRIOTIC INDIANS CAN DOWe have to ensure that the Maino clan does not stay in power. Dr. Manmohan Singh may be PM, which is a small relief, but he is not a fighter. The real power in government today is wielded by the Maino mafia gang. Can they be dethroned? I argue that they must be, for Indias integrity and democracy. In Indian democracy, other than by losing majority, only a shocking scandal can unseat a government. Todays priority is however not for toppling the Congress government as such, since Manmohan Singh is a decent and scholarly person, but in driving the Maino clan out of India. If the only way that can be done is by toppling the Singh government, then so be it. But the successor government should be such that it will not protect Sonia and her clan as Vajpayees did. It will although not be long before Sonia will give Manmohan Singh marching orders, and he will march out meekly. We should not expect him to resist. Thus time with patriotic Indians is limited.With Sonias defacto government in place, it is also unrealistic to expect that I can get an early victory in the courts on the KGB and antique smuggling cases. The most potent scandal at hand, therefore, that can dislodge the Maino clan[including Rahul and Priyanka] lies in exposing their existing Italian citizenship. That will galvanise the people.In 1992, Sonia had revived her citizenship of Italy under Article 17 of the Italian Citizenship Law [Act 91 of 1992]. Rahul and Priyanka were born Italian citizens because Sonia was Italian when she gave birth to them[Italian law based on jure sanguinis]. (see Annexure-19) Hence, they continue be Italians since they have never renounced their citizenship upon becoming 21 years old. Both, Rahul and Priyanaka have been traveling abroad on Italian passports. They may now acquire Venezuela passports too, since Rahul Gandhis wife, Veronica, is a Venezuelan. (See annexure- 20) That means one more foreign bahu for us tolerant Indians. The Maino-Gandhis are certainly getting Indian society globalised in their own selfish way. To end Bharat Matas shame and pain, what can patriotic Indians do in a democracy?As a first step there is an urgent need to document the facts about their citizenship on notarized paper, for which we need to set up a network in London, Milan, Hongkong, and in Venezuela. Those persuaded by my above stated facts and arguments may join in and help set up this network. Other steps can come later once this is accomplished.
nehru's view on corruption
Nehru' s views on corruptionEver wonder why India is so corrupt? Because like three-day old fish, the rot starts at the top. Now you know what the top was at the time of India’s independence and therefore you must have had your conjectures. Now wonder no more.An innocuous looking little item in the Hindu of Jan 9, 2010 says:Prime Minister Nehru categorically ruled out any proposal for appointing a high power tribunal to enquire into and investigate charges of corruption against Ministers or persons in high authority, for the main reason that, in India, or for that matter any other country where there was a democratic set-up, he could not see how such a tribunal could function. The appointment of such a tribunal, Mr. Nehru felt, would “produce an atmosphere of mutual recrimination, suspicion, condemnation, charges and counter-charges and pulling each other down, in a way that it would become impossible for normal administration to function.” More than half the time of the Press conference was devoted by Mr. Nehru to deal with this question of appointing a tribunal to enquire into cases of corruption as recently urged by India’s former Finance Minister, Mr. C.D. Deshmukh.The original item was published exactly 50 years earlier in the Hindu: January 9, 1960: Enquiry into charges Remember that Nehru’s Congress party and his progeny have been at the helm of affairs which has led to India to become one stinking filthy heap of corruption. Corruption cannot be eradicated from Indian politics as long as that fact does not change. (Hat tip: Sri.)
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