By IANS
Jalgaon (Maharashtra) : United Progressive Alliance (UPA) presidential candidate Pratibha Patil's brother G.N. Patil rushed to Delhi for a damage control exercise following allegations that she was protecting him in a murder case even as his supporters here defended him Saturday.
"G.N. Patil is not even remotely connected with the murder of former district Congress committee president V.G. Patil," asserted Jalgaon Municipal Corporation's ruling front leader Narendra Patil here.
"The charge sheet does not mention the name of either G.N. Patil or his friend, former MP Ulhas Patil and the effort to drag their names in the case now is nothing but mud slinging aimed at embarrassing Pratibha tai," Narendra Patil told IANS.
He was responding to the allegation made by V.G. Patil's widow Rajni at a press conference in New Delhi Friday that Pratibha Patil was shielding G.N. Patil in the murder case.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has taken up the issue and asked Pratibha Patil to respond to the allegation even as the UPA has come to her defence.
Narendra Patil pointed out that the Supreme Court had refused permission to include the two leaders' names in the charge sheet for want of a prima facie case against them while releasing two of the three accused, Damu Lokhande and Leeladhar Narkhede, last year.
Police had arrested them on the basis of a telephonic conversation they had with the main accused, Raju Mali, more than a month before the murder here Sep 11, 2004.
Mali had stated a few days before his death April 6 this year that G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil be made accused in the case as demanded by V.G. Patil's wife Rajni.
G.N. Patil and V.G. Patil had contested an election against each other.
The young Mali Maha Sangh leader had allegedly hit V.G. Patil on his neck with a knife as the latter came out of his car to see who had pelted a stone at it.
Rajni, who was in the car, had all along expressed suspicion about G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil being behind the murder though she moved the court in the matter much later.
It was in response to Rajni Patil's petition that the Bombay High Court's Aurangabad bench directed the state government Feb 23 this year to hand over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The investigating agency, which took charge of the case a couple of months later, was allowed to file a supplementary charge sheet in the case only Thursday.
G.N. Patil's detractors point out that money could have been the only motive for Mali, who was suffering from advanced HIV infection, to kill V.G. Patil and that Lokhande and Narkhede were closely associated with both G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil.