BJP to decide on ties with Sena after Presidential poll: Advani

Pune, July 12 (UNI) Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K Advani today said the party will take a review of its souring ties with its ally Shiv Sena after the Presidential elections.

Addressing a news conference here, targeting coming Presidential elections, Mr Advani said, ''We do not want the focus to shift from the poll to the Sena-BJP relations. The matter has still to be discussed in a proper forum. Some BJP party workers wanted us to take a decision about it immediately but the alliance will be considered after the elections. The matter came up only after the announcement of Pratibha Patil's candidature and not when Shivraj Patil's name was doing rounds despite him also being a Maharashtrian.'' When asked whether BJP leaders had met Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray, he said some people from the party had met Mr Thackeray to reconsider the Sena's decision.

''However, we will discuss the matter only after the Presidential polls,'' he reiterated.

While referring to the 11 cases and various allegations of financial fraud, irregularities, nepotism, gross mismanagement of self-founded instititutions of the UPA Presidential nominee Pratibha Patil, the BJP leader said the Central Bureau Of Investigation (CBI) has not done its job properly.

Mr Advani said the CBI had not done its work well as when Pratibha Patil was Member of Parliament from 1991-96, the rules for the use of MP LAD funds were violated.

However, vide Article 361 of the Constitution, the President has complete immunity in criminal proceedings and partial immunity in civil proceedings but the kith and kin do not have the immunity. The BJP is constrained to demand the immunity that the constitution confers on the President should not freeze the investigation in a legal process, he said.

When pointed out that the BJP in its tirade against the UPA candidate was lowering the dignity of the high office, he denied it, saying the party was doing on such thing. If at all, it was concerned as the President is the custodian of the Constitution, he said.

When asked whether it was necessary to have a political person as party candidate, he said in the past, political people were elected to the President's office and they had performed well.

''The task is to communicate with the people,'' he said.

To another query about NDA candidate Bhairon Singh Shekhawat contesting independenty, Mr Advani said after five years in the Vice-President's office, he had never renewed party membership and upheld the norms and dignity of the post, which was lauded and praised by all parties in the Rajya Sabha.

Dismissing the suggestions that Mr Shekhawat had misused official machinery, the BJP leader said ''As far as I know, even the phone he uses, has been specially installed and paid for.'' He complimented the media -- the print and the electronic -- for its investigative journalism in exposing the antecedents of the UPA Presidential nominee.

UNI