President Poll: PA Sangma, BJP may challenge Pranab's nomination

Even though the nomination of Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) candidate Pranab Mukherjee was found to be valid by the returning officer, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders are meeting to decide whether to challenge his nomination in court or not.

The meeting is taking place at BJP Lok Sabha MP and Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj's residence in New Delhi and is being attended by the leaders of all the political parties supporting former Lok Sabha speaker PA Sangma's candidature. Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy will be the key negotiator for Sangma.

The BJP had alleged that Mukherjee's signature on the resignation letter to the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) had been forged. BJP leaders claim that Mukherjee's signature on the resignation letter, which he produced in his affidavit, was forged was different from his normal one.

On Tuesday returning officer had accepted Mukherjee's nomination and over ruled Sangma's objection that the UPA candidate held an office of profit as the chairman of the ISI when he filed the nomination.

According to the returning officer the UPA nominee had resigned before filing his nomination. He further said that after the scrutiny of all the nominations filed for the elections, only those of Sangma and Mukherjee were found to be valid.

The Congress hit back saying Mukherjee had resigned from all the posts he held, including that of the ISI chairman, before filing his nomination.

The ISI Kolkata had also backed the former finance minister saying the post of its chairman was an honorary one, and not an office of profit.