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New Delhi, June 22  Slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over its decision to oppose UPA's presidential nominee Pranab Mukherjee, the Congress party Friday sought widest possible support for the leader and hoped parties not supporting him would revisit their decision.

"Opposing for the sake of opposition is the basic mantra of the BJP... If somebody decides to have a contest for the sake of it... they could find an excuse to justify it -- BJP is doing just that," party spokesperson Manish Tewari said.

The BJP Thursday decided to back P.A. Sangma for the president's post.

However, United Progressive Alliance (UPA) ally Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee is yet to clarify her stand on the presidential poll after former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, whom she proposed, declined to join the fray.

Tewari said that parties opposing the candidature of Mukherjee for the top constitutional post should reconsider their position.

"Considering his (Pranab Mukherjee's) long years of public service and political contribution, those who are not supporting him should reconsider their position," Tewari said, adding that the Congress hoped "widest possible support across the spectrum" for the union finance minister.

Referring to the 2002 presidential election, Tewari said the Congress party had displayed magnanimity and decided to back candidature of National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) candidate A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

He said after UPA decided its presidential candidate, "outreach was made to the BJP at the highest level".

Tewari said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke to BJP leadership and party president Sonia Gandi had also made an appeal for cross-party support to Mukherjee.

"In case they raise bogey of non-consultation, nothing much can be done," he said.

Alluding to BJP allies, including Janata Dal-United and Shiv Sena, who have extended support to Mukherjee, Tewari said the BJP has not returned the generosity his party had shown in the 2002 presidential poll.

"We are grateful to all those who have supported the candidature (of Mukherjee). We hope others will also revisit their position so that there is the largest possible consensus (on Mukherjee's name for the president's post)," Tewari said.

Lucknow, June 22  Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav Friday gave full marks to the Uttar Pradesh state government headed by his son, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, on the eve of completing 100 days in office.

"I am very happy with the way things are shaping up and will give a 100 on 100 to the government," said Mulayam.

He, however, cautioned that he would be doing a threadbare review of the government's performance when it is six months into office. "It is too early as of now. After six months, I will myself review the functioning of the government," he said.

Adding that his party was working hard for the Lok Sabha 2014 polls, Mulayam said the party's manifesto was of prime importance and the government should implement it as soon as possible. "The people have given us not only a mandate but full faith. We should live up to it," Yadav further said.

He said the national executive meeting of the Samajwadi Party would be held in Kolkata after the July presidential election.

Meanwhile, the opposition Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) came down heavily on the 100-day-old Akhilesh Yadav government and alleged that it was an "all-round failure".

"The state is in the grip of lawlessness, power chaos and lack of governance," said BSP state president Swamy Prasad Maurya. Adding that this government was out to squander the mandate of the people, Maurya said he was happy that the people of the state had already started regretting voting for the SP.

Akhilesh Yadav's government completes 100 days in office Saturday.

Islamabad, June 22  A court in Pakistan Friday granted interim bail to Makhdoom Shahabuddin, the primary candidate of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) for the post of prime minister, in an illegal drugs quota case.

The Peshawar High Court granted interim bail to Shahabuddin after an anti-narcotics court Thursday issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against him for unauthorisedly approving a manufacturing licence for the drug ephedrine to two pharmaceuticals firms.

After Shahabuddin filed a petition in the Peshawar High Court, Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan granted him interim bail of seven days, Geo News reported.

Shahabuddin's lawyer told Dawn News that Anti-Narcotics Force personnel wanted to arrest his client at the Punjab-Khyber Pakhtunkhwa border to stop him from contesting the election to the prime minister's office.

Shahbuddin said the arrest warrant would not have been issued had he not been nominated by his party.

He said a case had been filed against him last year but the arrest warrant was issued only on Thursday, the same day his candidature was announced.

London, June 22  A security firm in London said it conducted hundreds of searches for explosives by sniffer dogs at the Olympic Park, but those operations were never carried out, a media report said Friday.

The Sun said the operation was meant to stop terrorists from smuggling a bomb in a vehicle and setting it to detonate on a long-term timer at the Olympics site.

But security firm G4S faked the searches of traffic entering the park in Stratford in East London, for three years, the daily said.

Names of dog handlers on their days off were allegedly put down on shifts so that it looked like they were working. But no searches actually took place.

The daily said the alleged deception may have been carried out to avoid a 500-pound fine imposed by Olympic organisers LOCOG for every shift the firm could not cover.

The firm -- whose security contract is worth 284 million pounds -- is also said to have used dogs trained only to detect drugs because of a lack of animals able to sniff out explosives.

Two senior managers of the firm's dog section have been suspended, and the company is carrying out an internal probe.

The irregularities surfaced during a recent internal review by G4S, which is also supplying more than 10,000 staff for the Olympics, and training all 23,700 personnel who will be on guard.

Washington, June 22  In a blunt warning against supporting anti-India and anti-Afghan groups, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has asked Pakistan to do more about terrorist safe havens in its terrotory.

"What we've said to the Pakistanis is look, if there were ever an argument in the past for your policy of hedging against Afghanistan by supporting the Haqqani Network or the Afghan Taliban or the LET (Lashkar-e-Taiba) against India, those days are over," she said on a TV talk show.

"Because that's like the guy who keeps poisonous snakes in his backyard convinced they'll only attack his neighbours," Clinton said on the Charlie Rose show with former secretary of State James Baker for "Conversations on Diplomacy".

Noting that the US "relationship with Pakistan has been challenging for a long time", she lamented that in the aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Pakistanis "had embraced a kind of jehadi mentality in part to stimulate fighters both from the outside and within Afghanistan.

"So we are living with a country that has a lot of difficult issues both for themselves and then for us and others."

While it was not in US interests to cut off its ties with Pakistan, Clinton said "it is in our interest to try to better direct and manage that relationship, and there are several things that we're asking the Pakistanis to do more of and better.

"Number one, they've got to do more about the safe havens inside their own country.

"I mean, everybody knows that the Taliban's momentum has been reversed, territory has been taken back, the Afghan security forces are performing much better, but the extremists have an ace in the hole," Clinton said.

Pakistan "has to be willing to recognize that as we withdraw from Afghanistan, it is in their interest to have a strong, stable Afghan government", she said.

"That only can come from being part of the solution, being at that table to try to help with Afghanistan's economic and political and security development, rather than doing everything possible to try to undermine it."

New Delhi, June 22  Team Anna Friday reiterated its demand for an investigation into alleged graft charges against United Progressive Alliance (UPA) presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee, saying a person facing so many serious charges would bring disrepute to the top post.

In a five-page letter to Mukherjee, Team Anna said: "A person aspiring to be the President of India should be above board. You would agree that a person facing so many serious charges would bring disrepute to the position of president if he were not absolved of all these charges before being appointed on that post. Therefore, we demand independent investigations into all these charges before you are considered for this position," said the letter signed by seven Team Anna members.

The letter comes after Mukherjee slammed Team Anna for the "unfair" and "motivated" graft allegations against him.

He had termed the allegations "false, self-seeking, malafide and made with ulterior motive and lacking any form of responsibility".