Faced with a strident attack from the UPA-Left, Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat’s camp on Saturday raked up Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin issue as he sought to take a high moral ground by expressing his readiness to disclose his assets on his own.
Shekhawat’s spokesperson Sushma Swaraj called the Congress president a “foreigner”, insisting that her origin was a “100 per cent” political issue.
“The Congress has lost its moral right to talk about the freedom struggle after accepting a foreigner as its president,” she said a day after the ruling party charged that Mr Shekhawat had joined police at a time when others were quitting their jobs to plunge into the freedom movement.
Ms Swaraj, who insisted that she would speak only on behalf of Shekhawat and not as a BJP leader, rejected suggestions she was making a personal attack on Gandhi.
She told reporters that Shekhawat had asked his accountants to compile his asset details, which she said would soon be put up on his personal website.
Shekhawat, she stated, believed that it would be appropriate for him as a candidate for the country’s highest office to disclose his assets “unilaterally” because the issue had been raised in the context of public life and right to information to voter.
“On our part, we are not going to ask Ms Patil to disclose her assets. Those who have taken up the issue with the EC can do it,” Swaraj said.
Cong hits back
The Congress on Saturday hit back at Shekhawat for raking up the foreign origin issue, as it stepped up its attack on the V-P for having served under the British during the freedom movement. “It is supremely ironical that here is a foreigner who has chosen India as her karmabhoomi and family while 1942 saw an Indian ignoring Mahatama’s call for freedom struggle, to join a British-run police force. The public can decide the contrast for themselves,” Congress spokesman Abhishek Singvi said.
SP TO ABSTAIN FROM VOTING
Faizabad, uni: In a significant political development, the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party on Saturday announced that it would abstain from voting in the coming presidential election.
Talking to newspersons here, Mr Yadav, however, stated that the final decision of the Third Front — now rechristened as United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) — on the issue would become public in a couple of days.
The SP supremo was here to attend a marriage ceremony. He said that UNPA had nominated President A P J Abdul Kalam for a second term, since the internationally renowned scientist deserved  it. “Dr Kalam’s term as the President has been successful,’’ Mr Yadav noted.
Commenting on the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) presidential nominee Pratibha Patil, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said she was surrounded with controversies.