Sushma Swaraj digs up old video of Meira Kumar

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Sunday pulled out a four-year-old video of Opposition's presidential nominee Meira Kumar on frequent "interruptions" which was seen as a veiled attack on former Lok Sabha speaker's bias while conducting the House during the previous UPA II regime.

In one of the several tweets, Swaraj captioned the video, "This is how Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar treated Leader of the Opposition" that showed repeated interruption during her speech in the budget session of 2013. She had charged that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had led the "most corrupt government".

The senior BJP leader also shared a news report in the tweet carrying a headline “Speaker interrupted Sushma 60 times in 6-min speech”. The reportage of May 2013 quoted by union minister stated that as the leader of opposition she had walked out of the Lok Sabha after abruptly completing her speech that was cut short due to disruptions from treasury benches.

President of India is supposed to rise above party interests to discharge constitutional duties.

By fielding Kumar against NDA candidate Ram Nath Kovind, the presidential election is witnessing a Dalit versus Dalit contest. Both the candidates belonging to Schedule Caste but from different adjoining Hindi speaking states. While Kumar is from Bihar, Kovind is from UP. Now the parties are trying to dig into the past of the rival candidates to generate controversy.

Congress leader Kumar is reportedly under the scanner of the NDA government for owing rent dues of Rs 12 lakh for government house she was allotted in the national capital. Earlier the Manmohan Singh government had let her go scot-free from paying a rent of Rs 1.96 crore for holding on two bungalows in New Delhi area. One of the two houses was allotted to her father Jagjivan Ram, a former prime minister.

The opposition has dusted off past uncomfortable details to say that Kovind was a defence witness in Tehelka.com expose that ended up in the conviction of former BJP president Bangaru Laxman for accepting a bribe of Rs 1 lakh. Similarly, Kovind was reportedly against extending reservation benefits to Dalit Christians and Muslims in the Scheduled Caste (S/C) category. The former Bihar governor had taken that stand as a BJP spokesperson in the past.