A Selection Committee is all set to meet today with an agenda of appointing an anti-corruption Lokpal. The meet will…
Mallikarjun Kharge (Photo: Facebook)
A Selection Committee is all set to meet today with an agenda of appointing an anti-corruption Lokpal. The meet will have Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Chief Justice of India in attendance.
The main opposition Congress has refused to be a part of the meet as it objected to the “special invitee” status in the meeting.
Refusing to attend the meet, senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge wrote a letter to the Prime Minister saying that, “a more apt and statesman-like conduct is expected from the prime minister of the country.”
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“At the outset, let me state on behalf of myself, my party and the entire opposition that ‘Special Invitee Invitation’ is a concerted effort to exclude the independent voice of the opposition altogether from the selection process of the most important anti-corruption watchdog,” he added.
The government had invited him for today’s meeting of the Selection Committee as a special invitee.
Kharge, in the letter, has said that a special invitee invitation is a concerted effort to exclude the voice of the opposition in Lokpal selection.
As per the Lokpal Act, only the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha is a member of the Selection Committee and since Kharge is not the Leader of Opposition, he is not a part of the committee.
“My mere presence as special invitee without rights of participation, recording of my opinion and voting would be a mere eyewash ostensibly aimed at showcasing the participation of the opposition in the selection process.
In these circumstances I must decline the invite as special invitee to uphold the inviolability of the Lokpal Act 2013 as the current proceedings have reduced a sacred procedure to a political presence,” he said in the letter.
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