The Governor of Tripura, DY Patil, had planed to fly down to Pune to pacify activists opposing President Pratibha Patil's post-retirement home; tweets depleted his confidence and he sent his confidante instead, who in turn asked the soldiers to "tone down the agitation"

A couple of days back, President Patil’s men in the Defence Estate Office, Pune, were busy taking measurements of Col Suresh Patil’s outhouse, despite the fact that only Pune Cantonment Board is authorized to do so.

When they found no substance in this raid, the next best thing was to find out a strategy to pacify him and his two colleagues, Commander Ravindra Pathak and Anoop Awasthi, former naval officer, who has been spearheading a campaign against President Patil’s palatial retirement home in Pune measuring a whopping 2,42,000 sq ft when she is entitled to only 4,498 sq ft and that too of an existent government bungalow (she cannot indulge in new construction on government land).

A little bird tells us has it that last night Pratibha Patil asked Governor of Tripura, D Y Patil to fly down to Pune and meet Col Suresh Patil and somehow salvage the situation for her. Apparently, Col Patil got a call this morning as early as 6 am from  Governor D Y Patil who said he would be in Pune to meet him at 5.30 p m. He would send his driver and car to pick him up, once he lands in Pune. 

The news of the meeting spread like wildfire on the twitter and the media was constantly keeping a close watch on the event, throughout the day. However, 5 pm turned to 6 pm but there was no sign of D Y Patil.  Col Patil followed up with the driver every half an hour. He would reply that ``Dada has still not landed.’’ His private aircraft was awaited.

At around 7.30 p m `Dada’ D Y Patil landed but by then he must have been informed of the damage that Twitterati had done to his supposedly secret meeting.  Put off by this, D Y Patil instead sent his trusted  trustee of D Y Patil educational institutes, B D Kotkar Patil (there are just too many Patils involved in the mega controversy!).  He drove to Col Patil’s house at 8.15 p m.States Col Patil, ``we have known each other for many years and we chatted for a while. After about half an hour Kotkar said that he wants to talk to me separately.’’ Kotkar took him aside and asked him to ``tone down the agitation’’ and to have patience until April 24^th when D Y Patil will surely meet him. Col Patil replied, ``there is no question of toning down the agitation, instead it would be intensified. Now, it is not just the fight of citizens of India but also Indians who are staying all over the world and have joined us in our campaign. Our demand is that the President must return the land to our soldiers and there is no compromise on that.’’ Kotkar reiterated that D Y Patil would meet them on April 24^th.The three soldiers continue their mission to protest against President Patil’s palatial retirement home. On Monday, they are carrying out a signature campaign outside Collector of Pune’s office and will begin an online petition. They request everyone to join the movement.