NDA asks UPA to pull out Pratibha, Cong rubbishes Oppn cla

New Delhi, June 29 (UNI) A day before nominations close for the July 19 Presidential polls, the BJP asked the Congress to withdraw the candidature of its ''scandal-tainted'' nominee Pratibha Patil even as the ruling party rubbished the Opposition's claims as a cocktail of lies.

Senior BJP leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K Advani appealed to UPA leaders to withdraw Ms Patil from the Presidential race in view of ''the list of scandals'' involving her family members and replace her with any other suitable candidate as they still had one day to change their nominee.

''Taken together, these revelations completely and incontestably render the person unfit to occupy the high office.'' The UPA and its constituent parties should realise that ''arrogance and an inflexible attitude'' at this crucial moment would be costly for Indian democracy. Mr Advani said he was saddened that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had defended Ms Patil by dubbing the allegations as 'mud-slinging'. All these allegations could be sourced through verifiable records of the RBI and other government agencies and memoranda submitted by the people affected by scandals even before she was chosen by the UPA, he said.

However, coming out strongly in Ms Patil's defence, the Congress trashed the BJP booklet listing charges against the UPA-Left candidate, saying it was a ''cocktail of falsehood and selective quotations'', amied at misleading the country.

AICC Spokesman Abishek Manu Singhvi said the 24-page booklet betrayed the desperation of the BJP. He said he did not want to reply to the charges as the authors of the booklet had not made any credible allegation nor had they disclosed the sources of their information. Dr Singhvi said 20 per cent of the charges were based on some RBI report relating to a now-defunct Pratibha Cooperative Bank in Maharashtra. The remaining 80 per cent was nothing but repetition of the points discussed in a memorandum submitted by the employees union of the same cooperative society.

Asked for her reaction, NDA Spokesperson Sushma Swaraj said she had made it clear right from the beginning that Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat or the NDA would not make any comments concerning the personal allegations against Ms Patil.

The NDA, meanwhile, petitioned the Election Commission that the Congress was exerting undue influence on the voters by seeking the disqualification of former External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh from the Rajya Sabha because he had signed the nomination papers of Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat for the Presidential election.

In a formal complaint filed before the EC, the NDA said that Mr Singh being an elector in the Presidential election had an absolute right to propose or second the name of any candidate and vote and support the candidate of his choice irrespective of the party affiliations. It urged the EC to take appropriate action against the Congress for exerting undue influence on the voters.

Ten more nominations were filed today for the Presidential poll, taking the total number to 51 so far. Four of the nominations filed were rejected on the spot.

The last date for filing nominations is June 30 and scrutiny will take place on July 2. The last date for withdrawal of nominations is July 4. While the poll is to be held on July 19, counting of votes is slated for July 21.

As many as 776 Members of Parliament, including 543 from the Lok Sabha, and 4,120 legislators from various states, including Delhi and Puducherry, constitute the electoral college whose total vote value comes to 10,98,882 votes.

The ruling UPA alliance has got over 5.13 lakh votes while the strength of the opposition NDA is over 3.54 lakh votes and the combination of eight regional parties constituting the Third Front accounts for 1.05 lakh votes.

UNI