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Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and eminent lawyer Ram Jethmalani has launched a campaign to prevent UPA presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee from being selected to the august office of the President of India. Jethmalani has written an open letter to Mukherjee, who quit the Union Cabinet last month to contest the presidential election. This letter, Jethmalani states, "is being signed by a few like-minded citizens, who know something about your political history and what part you have played in Indian politics so far." "The signatories believe that what they write is the opinion of the overwhelming majority of the people of India . However, in the ensuing elections for electing a President, the electors are few, the right to vote being confined only to Members of Parliament and the State Legislatures," he adds. Jethmalani says the main motive of his letter is to educate the voters of 2014 about Mukherjee's lack of qualifications for the President's job. "The people will effectively vote in 2014. The present campaign is intended, of course, to prevent you from injuring the august office of President, but also to educate the voters of 2014 about your lack of qualifications for the job and your positive disqualifications for venturing to become the occupant of Rashtrapati Bhavan," he said in his letter. Expressing hope that the ruling Congress Party withdraws Mukherjee's candidature, Jethmalani said:"People of India do hope that the Congress and some of its allies who have endorsed your candidature will pay heed to this document and gracefully withdraw you from the contest." Jethmalani has also levelled a few charges on Mukherjee, who is all set to emerge victorious in the Raisina Hill race. He has accused Mukherjee of supporting the 1975 emergency and participating in its misdeeds. "During the scandalous Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi in 1975 and the resulting suspension of human rights of all citizens and the virtual demise of democracy, you were a very loyal, though a small time supporter of the Emergency. You fully supported it and participated in its misdeeds. You cannot honestly claim that at least in some small measure you expressed your disapproval of its evil or that you prevented a single atrocity inflicted upon some honest citizens," said Jethmalani. "Citizens possessed of the highest intellectual, moral and spiritual qualifications were the victims. You saved none. Throughout the Emergency, you acted like a loyal servant of the Gandhi family and what is worse, you were a complete collaborator with the main criminal of the Emergency i.e., the late Sanjay Gandhi. You treated him as your boss," he adds. "Recently, sometime in 2010, you wrote a book on the 125th anniversary of the Congress party. In this book you openly indicted Sanjay Gandhi for being solely responsible for all the excesses of the government during that disgraceful period of 1975-1977. This statement of yours is a true and voluntary confession. You have pleaded guilty to the charge that the Emergency was an unconstitutional aberration, but you suggest that the person responsible was Sanjay Gandhi. You are trying to find a posthumous defence for his mother," said Jethmalani. "What kind of Prime Minister was she to have abdicated her duty to the nation and allowed an uneducated automobile repairing son to lodge innocent people in jail and lunatic wards, to suppress the freedom of the press and cover up all his crimes with the slogan "India is Indira and Indira is India"? You are the originator of this slogan and we believe that Devkant Barua learnt it from you and not the other way round," he adds. Jethmalani further said: "During this period you were a Minister of State for Revenue and Expenditure. You have not been able to claim, even till today, that you gave any good advice to Sanjay and he desisted because of your good advice." Jethmalani accused Mukherjee of being inhuman to two of India's great women, the late Gayatri Devi and the Rajmata Vijaya Raje of Gwalior. "You were a party to the inhuman and wholly illegal incarceration of two of India's great women, the late Gayatri Devi and the Rajmata Vijaya Raje of Gwalior, both cultivated and socially evolved souls, in the cell of prisons, condemned to death in Tihar jail," said Jethmalani. "For one of them, you had even recorded a note that she should be released. But under pressure, you superimposed on it a new note with a wholly opposite opinion. The Shah Commission recorded a finding that you committed a forgery and destroyed evidence of your own opinion on that rare occasion," he adds. Jethmalani told Mukherjee in his letter that he was duly awarded for the services rendered to Sanjay Gandhi and his mother Indira Gandhi, as he was made the Minister of Finance after the fall of the Government. "Your services rendered to Sanjay and his mother were obviously appreciated by the two major criminals. After the ignominious fall of the Janata Government, you were duly rewarded for your Emergency services with a promotion as the full fledged Minister of Finance. This reward was obviously also for another great service, which you rendered to both of them before the fall of the Janata government," said Jethmalani. "This consisted of your conduct before the Shah Commission. The following finding of the Shah Commission in para 7.49 is worth quoting, "7.49 Although Shri Pranab Mukherjee assisted the Commission at the preliminary stage of the fact finding inquiry, he did not file any statement in the case, as was required to be done under Rule 5 (2) (a) of the Commission of Inquiry (Central) Rules 1972. He had responded to the summons u/s. 8B of the Commission of Inquiry Act, 1952. But he refused to take oath and tender evidence," he added. Jethmalani said that Mukherjee's 2010 confession showed his knowledge of excesses during emergency. "Your confession of 2010 shows your knowledge of excesses during Emergency. Why did you not speak of those excesses to the Shah Commission and help it to determine the truth? Of course you did show your loyalty to your erstwhile benefactors and conspirators, but you failed in your duty to truth and democracy," said Jethmalani. "The emergency was over and nobody had any fear from the new government. Even then, you did not summon courage to speak the truth," he adds. Jethmalani further said: "That thereafter you have been a member of every Cabinet in a Congress or Congress-led government. In the 1980s, as Commerce and Finance Minister, you were better known for tailoring policies to favour a particular corporate group to the extent that both in Parliament and press you were dubbed as a minister for that corporate group. Your ideological orientation towards crony capitalism has further been exposed in your present stint as Finance Minister by a former SEBI board member, K.M. Abraham, who has accused you and your powerful officer on special duty of being aligned with certain corporate groups, including your long time favourites." "You have also been associated with the rice export scam. Nor did you distinguish yourself for integrity as Minister for Defence between 2004 and 2006, during which tenure both the Scorpene deal case and the Navy War Room Leak case surfaced," he adds. "Your occupying the august position will be a disgrace to the Republic of India ," the letter says. " Bengal has given us stalwarts like Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Swami Vivekananda, Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, Sri Aurobindo, Rash Behari Bose, Rabindranath Tagore and many others. You are a disgrace to each of them," the letter adds.

Jethmalani writes open letter to Mukherjee ahead of Prez polls