What are the various arguments the Congress is putting forward in Pratibha Patil’s defence? That she is not to be blamed for loan defaults by her sugar mill because the entire sugar sector has seen a slump anyway. Second, that she is not to be blamed for all the shenanigans in the bank founded by her, and named after her, because, barring a small period, she did not have a formal position in its top management. And third, and probably the most honest of all, that all the charges thrown at her could be thrown at any other Maharashtra politician anyway because each one of them owns three things, a co-operative bank, a sugar mill and a bunch of colleges, and finally, that each one of these businesses lends itself to controversies.

Over the past week, since the revelations about her began to surface — along with her own pearls of wisdom on purdah, on talking to the dead and on the need for compulsory sterilisation of those with ‘hereditary disease’ — I have been met and been spoken to by several high-level Congress leaders. All of them profess the same line of defence, but I haven’t seen any one of them do so with any conviction.

There is, on the other hand, a ring of apology you do not usually expect of Congressmen, particularly when they are in power: ab jo hua, so hua (what has happened has happened), why complicate things; for better or worse, she will be the next president, so why encourage controversies? Or, the most honest of all, it was such a hurried, last minute choice, boss. Give her time and be patient, she is an experienced politician, she will make a pretty good president.

... contd.