'Independent' Shekhawat camouflaging RSS background:CPI(M)

New Delhi, June 26 (UNI) Stepping up its campaign against Vice- President and NDA-backed ''Independent'' candidate for the President's post Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, the CPI(M) today stated that he was indeed trying to camouflage his ''communal credentials in a very improper manner.'' ''Politically it is not an honest position,'' CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat said at the conclusion of the three-day deliberations of the party's 85-member Central Committee, preceded by a session of the 17-member Polit Bureau.

The Central Committee criticised the BJP for putting up Mr Shekhawat as an ''Independent'' candidate, when it is a fact that he had been a lifelong adherent of the RSS and a leader of the BJP, Mr Karat said.

The CPI(M) comment came a day after the Congress began a counter -offensive against Mr Shekhawat saying that the latter was indulging in ''gross constitutional and political improprieties'' by seeking to occupy the highest post on the sole promise that he would be able to engineer defections in the UPA-Left combine.

Mr Karat recalled the dismissal of the Rajasthan government headed by Mr Shekhawat in 1992 under Article 356 for his government's ''culpability and connivance'' in destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.

Describing the Vice-President as the ''so-called Independent candidate,'' the CPI(M) leader said there was a lot of confusion regarding this issue. ''The so-called candidate has filed his nominations sponsored by the people who were earlier closely associated with the Jan Sangh and now the BJP.'' ''Why is he hiding his political affiliation?" Mr Karat questioned as the Presidential poll is essentially a political process in which the MPs and the MLAs belonging to certain political parties participate.

The CPI(M) leader said the Central Committee members on the other hand endorsed the stand taken by the Polit Bureau to support the UPA nominee, Ms Pratibha Patil, for Presidentship. ''The CPI(M) is especially happy to support the election of the first woman President in the country.'' To a specific query to Ms Patil's demonstration of her ''belief'' in spiritualism at Mount Abu, the headquarters of the Brahmakumaris, Mr Karat quipped, ''We have not put the condition that the candidate should be an atheist or a non-believer.'' When queried on the party position on the UPA leadership offer to the Left for the office of the Vice-President, Mr Karat chose to ignore the question saying that ''Abhi is ke bare mein socha nahin'' (We have not thought over the issue as yet).

He also did not specify whether the candidate would belong to the Left or the UPA ally but spelt out that the Vice-President candidate should not be a Congress candidate.

''But we will go in for a suitable candidate. This is all on this subject.'' he added.

UNI