A four-year-old inspection report of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) containing information about financial irregularities in a cooperative bank founded by Pratibha Patil continued to provide ammunition for the Opposition BJP as it kept up its offensive against the UPA-Left Presidential nominee. 

Sushma Swaraj, chief spokesperson for the rival NDA candidate Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, said on Thursday that she did not expect Ms Patil to pull out of the contest in the face of the allegations of financial irregularities and acts of nepotism in the cooperative bank — Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank.

Fielding questions at a briefing from the Shekhawat campaign platform at NDA convenor George Fernandes’ residence, she said,  “I do not expect Ms Patil to resign”.

Allegations
Around the same time, at the BJP headquarters in the Capital, party spokesperson Ravishankar Prasad took on Prime Minister  Manmohan Singh over the latter’s comment on Wednesday night that the allegations against Ms Patil were mere “mudslinging”.

Unabashed defence
What the Prime Minister said amounted to “unabashed defence” of Ms Patil, he said.
Mr Prasad maintained that neither his party nor the NDA and its Presidential nominee were levelling any charge.
But the fact was that the RBI inspection report in 2003 had condemned the entire working of the cooperative bank and, based on this report about financial irregularities, the Union Finance Ministry had cancelled the bank’s license.

“Manmohan Singh has been the Finance Minister in the past and should a legitimate question arising from such a decision be called mudslinging?” he said. 

On the cooperative bank irregularities, he went on to make a fresh charge.

He said the authorities in the now defunct bank had also collected a day’s salary from employees to contribute to the Kargil war fund. But the amount had not been deposited with the Kargil Fund set up by the Centre. “Should such  a person, who presided over such a bank preside over the armed forces as the supreme commander?” he said. 

Mr Prasad contended that the Prime Minister, though an experienced administrator, might not have gone through the usual process of Intelligence Bureau clearance before nominating Ms Patil as the ruling combine’s candidate for the high office.

Vulnerable Prez
Alternatively, he alleged that the Prime Minister and the Congress president were aware of all her credentials and yet chose her because the ruling combine “wants not only a pliant but also a vulnerable President” in Rashtrapati Bhawan.

At the end of Mr Prasad’s media briefing, the party also circulated a booklet, containing two articles written by former Union minister Arun Shourie that quotes in detail from the RBI report regarding the irregularities as well a couple of pending criminal cases in courts against her family members.