By IANS
New Delhi : The ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Wednesday urged Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat to draw a lesson from its candidate Pratibha Patil and resign his post to contest the presidential elections.
"I have the highest regard for him (Shekhawat) as vice president. There is no rule for a governor or vice president to resign. But in the run-up to the elections people say let us set up some moral standards," said Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi.
Dasmunsi was making an obvious reference to Patil who resigned as governor of Rajasthan before filing her nomination papers on June 23.
"I only say a lady could step down from her office but a tall man could not come forward to resign."
Referring to the reported charges against Patil in a section of the media, Dasmunsi indicated that Patil will personally appear before the media to comprehensively answer all charges made against her.
"But this will happen only after the scrutiny of her nomination papers and the after the last date of withdrawal."
Simultaneously, he took severe objection to the Leader of Opposition in parliament, L.K. Advani, describing Patil as "tainted" in his speech to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national executive Tuesday.
"Without any documents and without any enquiry commission passing, charges are being freely levelled against her. But to call a lady tainted, that too by the Leader of Opposition in parliament is highly undignified and deplorable," exclaimed Dasmunsi, who is in charge of Patil's election campaign.
"I demand that Advani withdraw his remarks."
But he was quick to point out that neither BJP president Rajnath Singh nor National Democratic Alliance (NDA) chairman Atal Bihari Vajpayee had said anything objectionable so far.
Meanwhile, BJP spokesperson Sushma Swaraj said the Congress was lying by claiming that it had in May petitioned the Rajya Sabha chairman to disqualify former external affairs minister Natwar Singh.
She said the petition was submitted by the chief whip of Congress in the Rajya Sabha, V. Narayanswamy, only on Tuesday after Natwar Singh signed the nomination papers of Shekhawat.