P A Sangma has decided to petition the Election Commission on Saturday against UPA’s presidential nominee Pranab Mukherjee.
The Rajya Sabha secretary general, the returning officer, had on Wednesday rejected their objection that presidential nominee Mukherjee should be disqualified as a presidential nominee because he had violated office of profit rules. “We have decided to petition the Chief Election Commissioner against the returning officer’s order,” said BJP leader S S Ahluwalia after a meeting at Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj’s residence, which was attended by Sangma, Subramaniam Swamy, Ananth Kumar, and Sangma’s election representative Satya Pal Jain.
“We have examined the order passed by the returning officer. We are of the view that he has not dealt adequately with the various issues that we raised during the scrutiny process,” said Jain.
Interestingly, in the proceedings that were made public today, Jain’s primary allegation was that Mukherjee’s resignation letter to the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata was “back-dated”.
During the scrutiny proceedings, Jain claimed that Mukherjee continues to hold the office of chairman of ISI, Kolkata. “The letter seems to have been forged in the back date. So, my respectful submission is that this is a clear-cut case, open and shut case, that he is holding the office till date. They have not been able to lay down any material about the acceptance of the resignation, about the tendering of the resignation. Even the original has not come. Where is the original document? You are holding an inquiry. Only photocopy has come. The original has also not been produced,” Jain said.
