President poll: Pranab Mukherjee's nomination accepted

New Delhi: A day after former Lok Sabha Speaker P A Sangma challenged the candidature of UPA's Pranab Mukherjee for the presidential elections, the nomination of the latter was accepted on Tuesday.

The Returning Officer has decided that 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.

Sangma, who is backed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and the AIADMK, had claimed that Mukherjee held an office of profit as the chairman of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI).

The scrutiny of Pranab\'s nomination was earlier deferred as the Sangma camp had accused him of holding an office of profit.

However, the Pranab camp, led by the Congress, had 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.

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