Shekhawat asset declaration is political melodrama : Congress

New Delhi, July 13 (UNI) The Congress today said the declaration of assets by Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat for the July 19 Presidential election was nothing but ''pure farce, political melodrama and hyprocrisy.'' ''It is actually playing out melodrama...playing out farce,'' AICC Spokesman Abishek Manu Singhvi told mediapersons, while pointing out that such a declaration was not relevant to Presidential election.

Asked if UPA-Left candidate Pratibha Patil would also follow the footsteps of Mr Shekhawat declaring her assets, he said "Our Presidential candidate is not obliged to do something which the law does not prescribe." Earlier in the day, Mr Shekhawat declared his movable and immovable assets and liabilities in the interest of 'transparency and probity in public life'.

Dr Singhvi pointed out that the Representation of People's Act did not prescribe the Presidential candidate to declare his or her assets. But this was mandatory to the elections to the state assemblies and Parliament.

In this context, he said the BJP had been lecturing the nation on Indian values and tradition. ''But we know they never follow Indian culture and tradition and apologise to the nation for playing the role of an irresponsible Opposition.'' Dr Singhvi said only five days were left for the BJP to repent for what they had done against Ms Patil through their mudslinging campaign.

''They (BJP) should search inner soul and retrieve their prestige by apologising to the nation for consistently mounting negative campaign against Ms Patil.'' In this context, he said 75 per cent of the contents of the booklet released by the BJP on Ms Patil was nothing but a reproduction of the "unsubstantiated" allegations levelled by the employees of the shuttered Pratibha Cooperative Bank.

Dr Singhvi called upon the BJP to deny the charges against Mr Shekhawat which were published in a leading English magazine.

He said Mr Shekhawat, as Rajasthan Chief Minister, had misled the state assembly when he announced that a CBI inquiry had been ordered into the allegations of land grabbing against his son-in-law. But it later turned out that no such inquiry was ever pending against him.

The magazine, he said, had also alleged that Mr Shekhawat was suspended when he was working in British police before independence.

UNI