National

Bid to malign her, says Congress

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Tuesday regretted that despite its appeal to senior leaders, the Bharatiya Janata Party was continuing with its campaign against United Progressive Alliance-Left Presidential candidate Pratibha Patil.

Commenting in the wake of a website launched on Ms. Patil, Congress leader Devendra Dwivedi said the development was not unexpected as the BJP has been hurling allegations against Ms. Patil on the basis of “half-truths.”

Mr. Dwivedi said though he had not seen the contents on the website, by various accounts it contained a compilation of articles published in newspapers on Ms. Patil. The exercise was futile and aimed at denigrating the office of President and maligning an individual.

“It depends on how you use a website. It could be to spread information, for terrorist activities or defame. There is a frustrated section in the BJP, a queer combination of the senile and the juvenile, that was denigrating institutions,” he said.

He said the BJP owes an explanation to the nation on the “factual statements” published by a prominent English weekly containing eyewitness accounts to events unfolding in a particular point of time against Bhairon Singh Shekhawat’s early life and how the floor of a House was used to make a statement based on lies.

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