George Fernandes’s son Sean’s letter pasted on a police vehicle outside the leader’s bungalow. Ramakant Kushwaha

New Delhi, Jan. 8: George Fernandes, the superannuated rebel of Indian politics, finds himself mired in a messy family row in the winter of his life.

The longstanding spat over Fernandes’s financial assets between his estranged wife Leila Kabir — daughter of former Union minister Humayun Kabir — and son Sean on one side, and his high-profile companion of three decades, Jaya Jaitly, today spilled onto the streets of New Delhi’s VIP district.

At the core of the tussle, which Delhi police have now been dragged into, is immovable property worth Rs 7 crore in Hubli in Karnataka and a flat in south Delhi’s posh Hauz Khas. Leila and Sean, it would appear, apprehend that Jaitly has her eyes on both.

On Friday evening, police barred Anil Sahni, a Rajya Sabha MP from Fernandes’s Janata Dal (United), from entering the 3 Krishna Menon Marg bungalow that the senior leader has long lived in. After a brief fracas at the gates, Sahni was taken to the nearby Thughlaq Road police station and shown a letter from Sean.

In the letter, Sean has requested “adequate security to all members” of the family, that is Fernandes, Leila, himself and his wife and 10-month-old son.

“I also request you to kindly instruct the guards at the gate to allow entry to only such people whom my father, my mother and I wish to meet. All others are to be forbidden entry,” states Sean in the letter, now pasted on a police vehicle parked outside the bungalow.

It goes on to say: “I am apprehending foul play/physical harm from some people who I believe have been looting whatever is left of father’s assets and taking advantage of his poor health.”

Sahni may only have been a collateral loser of Sean’s instructions to the police; what it effectively means is that Jaitly, who was de facto mistress of the 3 Krishna Menon Marg premises as Fernandes’s companion and, for a while, as president of the defunct Samata Party, will have no access.

That is clearly the import of Sean’s application to the police, made on January 2. Fernandes can now only meet those people whom Sean and Leila want him to meet. Not that it would matter to Fernandes. For, the 80-year-old Rajya Sabha MP cannot recognise even his trusted lieutenants of several decades, let alone relatives or political associates.

Sean (or Sushanto), 35, is an investment banker in New York. Speaking to The Telegraph, he declined to go into the nitty-gritty of what had led to his security request, saying only that his current concern was to get the best possible treatment for his father. Fernandes is undergoing treatment at a private hospital in south Delhi.

Asked who he apprehended danger to his father’s legacy from, Sean said: “I would not like to identify anyone at this point. My concern is that my father gets the best treatment and that is why I am here. The police complaint was to let everybody know that we (Fernandes’s family) were in town. We are not afraid of anyone.”

But clearly, a show of one-upmanship over ownership of the ailing Fernandes is on. Last Sunday, Leila had asked some of Fernandes’s closest friends to come and meet him. It was meant to be her show of strength, an attestation of sorts that she, and nobody else, was Fernandes’s legitimate legatee. The list included the likes of JD(U) president Sharad Yadav, veteran socialist Surendra Mohan, prominent lawyer Swaraj Kaushal and Fernandes’s brother Freddie.

Leila had walked out of Fernandes’s house with the baby Sean in 1984, but the two never formally divorced. For several years now, Jaitly has been Fernandes’s constant personal companion and political associate. She was not available for comment on the unfolding events.

It was a little ahead of the 2009 Lok Sabha elections that Leila resurfaced in Fernandes’s life, pleading that he be protected from the “coterie” that was pushing him into contesting as an Independent from Muzaffarpur in Bihar.

Fernandes’s health and state of mind, Leila pleaded, did not permit active politics any more. Fernandes, however, did contest the polls despite being denied a ticket from his party on health grounds, and got drubbed. He was only later given the concession of his years and contribution by the JD(U) and secured into the Rajya Sabha.

“I feel sorry for Fernandes. In his state, he should have been far away from public limelight,” said an associate. “With much of Fernandes’s assets and funds being managed by Jaya Jaitly, Leila is trying with whatever little she has to get him the best possible treatment.”

Anil Hegde, for long years Fernandes’s Man Friday, was only willing to say: “This is a family matter. We want to sort it out within the family. I have nothing to add.”

Clearly, though, this dispute has slipped beyond the family into the public arena and the odds are the last hasn’t been heard of it. So stricken is Fernandes by Alzheimer’s that he probably doesn’t even know.