Shimla, Jul 6: Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushama Swaraj today launched a fresh attack on UPA's presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee and alleged Mukherjee's signature on the letter resigning from Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata, was not genuine.
Swaraj, who was at Kangra in Himachal Pradesh to inaugurate the 3-day meeting of the national executive of hartiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), said “it was painful that Pranab Mukherjee who forgot to resign from the post of ISI chairman, an office of profit, and when BJP raised doubts, he submitted his resignation that had forged signatures on it”.
Claiming that Mukherjee had not quit the post of ISI chairman before filing his nomination for presidential polls, the BJP leader said his papers should have been rejected by the Returning Officer since the post was an “office of profit”, which was a disqualification if the candidate held the post at the time of filing nominations.
Terming Mukherjee's resignation as “fake”, Swaraj alleged that in a bid to save the UPA nominee's papers, a letter of resignation was “prepared hurriedly and forged signature put on it”.