A day ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections in which five candidates are in the fray from West Bengal, Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who got support from ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), came down heavily upon CPI(M) for their objections against his candidature.
Referring to the allegation brought by CPI(M) about his affidavit being incomplete and the papers carrying a false age, Singhvi said that the allegations were petty and puerile. The CPI(M) had put up a press conference and released a statement to the Election Commission of India on Wednesday.
Singhvi said, "On March 21, they raised objections that the notary was stamped but not signed and that my own statement was forged. Most importantly, they raised a malicious and false allegation about my age. This is farcical, if not tragic, that they find problem with my age now as in the last 59 years millions of documents have February 24, 1959 as my date of birth. Since the CPI(M) knows and is convinced about its defeat, they have stopped fighting like gentlemen," Singhvi said outside the West Bengal state Assembly on Thursday.
Later while talking to DNA, when asked if he would file a defamation suit against the CPI(M), he said, "I have not ruled it out."
Congress MLAs, however, still maintained that there would be a joint protest with the CPI(M) in the state, against the TMC.
Singhvi, on a different note, reacted to Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad holding Congress responsible for fake websites and said, "The Law Minister is the right person to speak about it. No one can be more familiar than the BJP with fake websites. The BJP has perfected this to an art. There was a lot of trash circulated against Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi by BJP goons. So yes they have a lot of experience in this. All I can say is that this is the government in power. Rather than holding press conferences which only show the impotence of the government, why dont they take action rather than threatening. There is the IT Act. It shows that you are playing a political game to hide all the fake ones you have put up yourself."
