Patil's assets: Advani wants EC to intervene

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today asked Pratibha Patil, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) candidate for the presidential election, to disclose her assets, but there was no indication when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) nominee, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, would do so.

BJP leader L K Advani sought the Election Commission's intervention in the matter, asking it to get Patil to make her assets public. Making it a matter of principle, Advani said all presidential candidates must declare their assets if MPs and MLAs are bound to do so. He argued that the President of India was also elected, even if indirectly, by the people of India.

In his letter, Advani referred to the allegations that Patil had mismanaged a co-operative bank, which closed down in 2002 due to bad loans to her kin.

Patil is also charged with shielding her brother in a murder case. However, at a campaign rally in Chennai yesterday, Patil said, "The malicious allegations made against me are false and baseless. I will continue to serve the nation with humility and deep sense of duty."

The rally served another political purpose: It enabled Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK chief M Karunanidhi to lay a virtually proprietary claim on Patil, sending a message to his constituency that it was he who had managed to swing the appointment of India's first woman President of India even though she was not from Tamil Nadu. In the process, the Congress lost all control of the political initiative.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is all set to hear on Tuesday a petition seeking to cancel Patil's nomination papers. The petition filed by advocate Manohar Lal Sharma was mentioned on Monday before a Bench comprising Justice Tarun Chatterjee and Justice P K Balasubramanyan. In the petition, the advocate has referred to the allegations against Patil and her family members as the grounds for cancellation of her nomination papers.

The Congress has called Advani's letter to the Election Commission "mischievous". "There is no law on this and even if Pratibhaji was to file it voluntarily, the presiding officer has no powers to accept such a paper," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said.

Singhvi said Advani's letter virtually amounted to asking the EC to take over as the law-maker. He said that under a Supreme Court directive, the candidates for Parliamentary and Legislative elections had to declare their assets at the time of filing of their nomination papers, not the President of India.

BJP sources said it would have been a handsome gesture if Shekhawat, suo motu, had offered to lay bare his assets. The party is considering the political implications of doing so.