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Prez poll: NDA, UPA stand-off continues
Onkar Singh in New Delhi
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June 29, 2007 21:53 IST

Abhishek Singhvi, spokesman of the Congress party, speaking at the party headquarters on Friday, has advised the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies to change their candidate for the Presidential elections.

Advani had said that in view of the allegations against the UPA and Left nominee Pratibha Patil, they would do well to announce another candidate for the Presidential poll.

"Yes, we agree but his advice would be better applied to the National Democratic Alliance and not to us," Singhvi said on a lighter note.

He ridiculed the NDA for going to the Election Commission and asking for its intervention just because the party had asked for disqualification of Natwar Singh for signing the nomination of Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.

"We had spoken to Shekhawat on May 5 about Singh campaigning for the Samajwadi Party, and mentioned that it invites the clause of disqualification as he is a member of the Congress Party. As far as why we took so much of time it is for the party to decide when to apply for disqualification," he said.

He tore the BJP booklet on Pratibha Patil which claimed that it had the details of Pratibha Gramin Bank.

"They should tell us whether they got the document from the Reserve Bank of India [Get Quote]. They said that she was chairman of the bank but the fact is that she was chairman of the Bank for 38 days and she was not director in 1994," Singhvi said but added that he should not even respond to the NDA's claims, except for the sake of the media.

He denied that Pratibha Patil has given an interview to a news-weekly. "She has not given a formal interview. She will appear before the media at an appropriate time but not now because we do not want her to face barrage of questions from media persons," he clarified.

He denied that there was any case going on against Patil in any court of law.



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