June 23, 2007
Pratibha Patil Files Nomination
as BJP Launches Vicious Attack
New Delhi
Pratibha Patil, the candidate of India's ruling coalition, Saturday
filed her nomination papers for the July 19 presidential election in
which she is pitted against Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat
even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) questioned her moral right
to hold the country's highest office.
Accompanied by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president
Sonia Gandhi, Patil, the nominee of the United Progressive Alliance
(UPA)-Left-Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) combine, reached the parliament
house in the morning and filed two sets of nominations to formally
plunge into the big but increasingly murky battle.
If Patil, who enjoys majority support among the MPs and MLAs who
elect the country's president, wins the election, she will be
India's first woman head of state.
"The opposition is trying to make the atmosphere murky but there is
no doubt that our candidate will win hands down," Tourism Minister
Ambika Soni asserted after the nomination papers were submitted to
Lok Sabha Secretary General and returning officer P.D.T. Achary.
But even as Soni made the comments, an unrelenting BJP stepped up
its campaign against Patil, accusing her of shielding her brother
who is charged with murdering a man in 2005 and alleging that a
sugar factory owned by her owed huge sums of money to a cooperative
bank.
While UPA leaders, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar in particular,
rallied to the defence of the 73-year-old Patil, the BJP asked her
to give a "satisfactory" explanation to the charges levelled against
her.
"A serious moral question arises whether a person involved with an
institution (sugar factory) which has indulged in such
irregularities is fit to become the president of India. After all,
it is a question of public money," BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad
told reporters here.
According to media reports, the cooperative factory in Jalgaon in
Maharashtra, from where Patil hails, had defaulted on a Rs.175
million loan given by a Mumbai cooperative bank in 1994. Patil is a
founder member of the factory but her aides say she has not been
associated with it for three years.
On Friday, Rajni Patil, also from Maharashtra, levelled the murder
allegation against her brother. She alleged that the brother killed
her husband but that Pratibha Patil was "shielding" him.
"These are all stark, important and disturbing facts much in
existence even before she was considered a candidate for the highest
constitutional office of the country," Prasad said.
UPA leaders condemned the charges and called it a "malign campaign"
against Patil, who resigned Thursday as the Rajasthan governor after
having served earlier as cabinet minister in Maharashtra half a
dozen times.
"Pratibha is one of the cleanest politicians. I have known her since
1967," Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief and Agriculture
Minister Pawar told a specially convened press conference after she
filed her nomination papers.
Pawar and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi
dubbed the allegations a "reflection of the frustration, desperation
and a definite loss of understanding of the situation by those who
indulged in it".
Patil was the surprise pick of the UPA-Left-BSP alliance for the
presidential election after the communists vetoed the candidature of
Sonia Gandhi's first choice, Home Minister Shivraj Patil.
Meanwhile, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who has rejected the Third
Front's plea to consider a second tenure after initially expressing
willingness to contest if there was certainty of his victory,
Saturday said "enough was enough".
"In five years time in Rashtrapati Bhavan, we have all worked for
transforming it into a people's bhavan. Rashtrapati Bhavan has
become a people's bhavan today. I believe it should be an example
for the nation. It should not get degenerated. That is why I said
enough is enough," Kalam said during an interaction with a news
agency.
Kalam's withdrawal from the scene means Patil and Shekhawat will
fight it out, with the numbers clearing favouring the former.
Shekhawat will file his nomination papers Monday or Tuesday.
Twelve independents have also filed the nominations although many do
not have the support of the mandatory 50 MPs or MLAs proposing and
seconding them.
All the key UPA leaders and partners except those of the BSP were
present when Patil filed her nomination. Patil's husband Devisingh
Shekhawat was with her.
Patil, who visited Rajghat to pay tributes to Mahatma Gandhi before
she filed her nomination, will tour all state capitals appealing for
support. She is likely to begin her journey on July 1 from Chennai.
The scrutiny of the nominations will take place July 2. The election
will be on July 19 and the result will be declared July 21.
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