What makes Prez poll 2007 the dirtiest election ever

The presidential poll of 2007 will probably be remembered as one of the dirtiest and most political election to Raisina Hill.
While choosing India’s first citizen was never a simple process anyway, this year the contest has been reduced to mere political mudslinging.

Murder and financial impropriety charges against the next possible first citizen, a people’s president who appears to have political ambitions and a vice-president playing to his own tune - how did it come to all this?
In a special show Kaun Banega Rashtrapati CNN-IBN Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai conducted a debate on the big questions plaguing the election to India’s highest office.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi, BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad, MP and General Secretary of Samajwadi Party Amar Singh and Tuglaq Editor Cho Ramaswamy were among the panelists to discuss the issue.

Pratibha Patil formally entered the race for presidency when she filed her nomination as the UPA-Left candidate on Saturday. And not surprisingly, the entire Cabinet including Congress president Sonia Gandhi was present to cheer the chosen one.
"She was not UPA's first choice. Why choose this woman when she is going to be rubberstamp?" - Cho Ramaswamy.

Saturday might have been Patil's big day but ironically, it’s only been a time when the past has returned to haunt her.
A story broken by CNN-IBN on loan defaults by a co-operative of which she was once a chairperson have raised several embarrassing questions for Patil.


Is Pratibha Patil the right choice for President?
When Pratibha Patil was chosen by the UPA-Left combined a week ago the Congress said she was a candidate who exemplified honesty and decency in public life. The last 48 hours there is now a question mark on the issue of property.
Reacting to the charges against Patil, Singhvi said, “I think there is no question mark at all. If you have a set of facts which are unrelated and do not convert to any conclusion it does not become a question mark. Here is a person who resigned as director and chairman well before she became even governor of Rajasthan. Seventy-six societies of a similar kind are sick in Maharashtra. Twenty-six of them have been issued notices under the securitisation act. No single notice to her and no personal guarantee, “ he added.

But the fact remains she was also the founder president of that co-operative. She took the loan in 1994, the loan was taken from farmer cultivators and was not paid back.

Singhvi ran to his party’s candidate defence and said every society and sugar factory in Maharashtra started with a loan and hers was not an exception. He also pointed out that all the 76 factories were sick. “Twenty-six of them have notices issued on normal cause. She had nothing to do with the whole issue. She has been associated with an entity that entity is in the process of dealing on a securitisation notice. What is the moral issue here? “ Singhvi questioned.

Strongly reacting to Singhvi’s statement, Ravi Shankar Prasad insisted it was indeed a moral issue considering the sanctity of President’s office. “It’s a question of the highest constitutional office in the country something of a constitutional propriety and moral question has come from there. There were 70 or 75 companies but there directors are not in the race to become the president of India that is the most important feature. Here as you rightly pointed out she took the loan she remains the life member of the society. Her brother today is the chairman of that society. All this makes involvement of public money.”