NDA to petition EC against Congress''Intimidating voters''

New Delhi, June 28 (UNI) The NDA will file a petition before the Election Commission tomorrow against the Congress for 'intimidating' voters by seeking disqualification of former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh less than 24 hours after he proposed Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat's candidature for the Presidential election.

NDA spokesperson Sushma Swaraj said the NDA's petition was ready and would be submitted before the EC tomorrow by Satpal Jain, the former chief of the BJP legal cell. The NDA has contended that the seeking of disqualification of Mr Singh from his Rajya Sabha membership was intended to scare the voters in the Presidential elections.

Mr Singh, a suspended Congress MP, had campaigned for the Samajwadi Party in the recently-concluded Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. The notice was not served at that point of time but now, when the voting is due, the party argued.

While the BJP has brought out a priced booklet on UPA's Presidential nominee Pratibha Patil, titled 'Does this tainted person deserve to become the President of India? the NDA on its part said it would not make any comments about the allegations appearing in the media. ''I declare as a person in charge of the campaign for Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, I can tell you that we don't intend to make this an election issue,''Ms Swaraj said.

Asked if Ms Patil would backtrack from the race in the light of surfacing of allegations, Ms Swaraj said she did not expect so.

When queried if Mr Shekhawat would give up the race in response to Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi asking him to quit to ensure the election of a woman as the next President of India, she said,''You should know, he filed his nomination papers after Ms Patil filed her papers and the message should be clear to one and all.'' UNI