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Indian Presidential Polls

Sangma challenges Pranab's candidature

Our Correspondent, New Delhi
Opposition nominee PA Sangma yesterday tried to put block ruling UPA candidate Pranab Mukherjee's presidential poll candidature by seeking cancellation of his nomination under the Office of Profit rules.
But Mukherjee's office and the govern-
ment rejected it.
Sangma wrote to Rajya Sabha Secretary General V K Agnihotri, who is the returning officer for the presidential election, claiming that Mukherjee was the chairman of the Indian Statistical Institute (I SI) near Kolkata and therefore his
SEE PAGE 6 COL 1 FROM PAGE 20 nomination papers should be rejected.
The government as well as Mukherjee's office rejected the claim, saying he had resigned from the post days before filing nomination papers for the July 19 presidential poll.
"He (Mukherjee) had resigned as chairman, ISI, on
June 20, a week before he filed his nominations," Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said.
Yesterday was the last day for scrutiny of forms for the presidential election. The last date of withdrawal of candidature is tomorrow.
Bansal, the authorised representative of Mukherjee,
said he and Home Minister P Chidambaram met Mukherjee after Sangma's claim and they were told by him of his resignation well in advance of filing the nomination.
He said Sangma's claim was factually incorrect, legally ill-conceived and untenable.
"Pranab Mukherjee would be filing a written reply to the
returning officer by tomorrow [today]," Bansal said.
Earlier, Sangma's lawyer Satpal Jain demanded Mukherjee's papers be cancelled at the scrutiny stage as he holds an Office of Profit.
Jain said Mukherjee is chairperson of ISI and, hence, cannot contest the presidential poll under the Office of Profit rules.