New Delhi, Jul 7: Janata Party Chief Subramanian Swamy and BJD MP Bartuhari Mahtab today met Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath and complained against the Presidential poll Returning Officer's order rejecting the opposition demand for scrapping Pranab Mukherjee's candidature for allegedly holding an Office of Profit.
Swamy and Mahtab represented opposition-backed candidate P A Sangma on the issue before the CEC.
Sangma and his camp are not satisfied with the verdict given by Returning Officer V K Agnihotri.
After a meeting here on Thursday, Sangma's Election campaign committee decided to take the matter to the CEC.
The RO had said he was convinced that Pranab Mukherjee had quit as Chairman of Indian Statistical Institute on June 20 as claimed by him.
BJP maintains Mukherjee's signature on his resignation letter is fabricated.
“We are going to the CEC with the complaint as under Article 324 of the Constitution, the authority of superintendence of polls lies with the EC,” BJP leader S S Ahluwalia had said.
“The order of the RO is not complete in itself. All disputes and issues which we had been raised should have been dealt with by the RO as per Rule 5(E).
But the RO has gone by the advice of Mukherjee's representative (Pawan Bansal) that this should be dealt with under Part III of the Constitution on President and Vice-President,” he said.
