New Delhi, September 26: The former President, Pratibha Patil, whose foreign tours and post-retirement housing plans generated controversies towards the end of her tenure, is attracting fresh criticism for dispatching gifts received while in office to a museum run by her son.
According to an answer provided by Rashtrapati Bhavan to a Right to Information query by activist Subhash Chandra Agarwal, as many as 155 gifts/artefacts received by Ms. Patil during her tenure have been given on loan to the Vidya Bharati Shaikshanik Mandal, Amravati, Maharashtra, for display.
In his query, Mr Agarwal cited media reports that the gifts were kept in the private museum of this Mandal, which is controlled by none other than her son and Congress MLA Rajendra Singh Shekhawat.
Rasthrapati Bhavan said an MoU was signed between the President’s Secretariat and the Mandal on June 15 this year, a few weeks before she demitted office. It said the MoU would cease to be operative from June 15, 2013, and all the artefacts currently on loan would be returned to Rashtrapati Bhavan thereafter.
The RTI reply also cited a precedent for this, noting that during the term of President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, 36 artifacts were handed over for display in the Brahmos Centre in New Delhi.
But Mr. Agarwal argues that while the Brahmos Centre was a government body, the Vidya Bharati Mandal is a private trust involving Ms. Patil’s family members. He alleges that the RTI response makes it clear the President’s Secretariat during Ms. Patil’s tenure did not follow the toshakhana (government treasury) rules in regard to gifts received by the President.
He says that like her predecessors, Ms. Patil should have surrendered all her gifts to the toshakhana.
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