'Calling me as special invitee to Lokpal selection panel an eyewash': Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge writes to Narendra Modi

Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing his reservation about being called as a ‘special invitee’ to the meeting of Lokpal Selection Committee, and termed the move a mere eyewash. [caption id=“attachment_4372527” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge. PIB[/caption] In his letter, Kharge alleged that the government move to invite him, the leader of the single largest Opposition’s party, as a ‘special invitee’ is a farcical move to scuttle the Opposition’s voice. He pointed out that there is no provision in the Lokpal and Lokayukta Act for a special invitee to be a member of the selection panel. He contended this would mean that he was invited to attend the meet “without rights of participation, recording of opinion, and voting in the procedure,” which is a way to mislead the nation. With the Congress winning less than the stipulated 10 percent of the seats in the 2014 general election, the party lost the status of the prime Opposition party as per set procedure. The Centre had flagged two hurdles in implementing the Lokpal law as it exists, one of which was that it provides that the selection panel should have the Leader of Opposition (LOP) as one of its members, but there is no recognised LoP in the current 16th Lok Sabha. Meanwhile, anti-graft crusaders have been demanding a change in the Lokpal to allow ’leader of the single largest Opposition party in the Lok Sabha’ to facilitate the participation of the Opposition’s voice. Kharge alleged that the government’s ‘double standards’ on the issue were exposed as he was categorically denied the right to voice his opinion or vote in the process, and added that “the process of appointing a Lokpal would be vitiated” under such circumstances. He’d also written a two-page letter to the Modi on 28 February outlining his reasons for backing out of the selection panel meeting. However, he lamented that not only did the previous letter go unacknowledged, the government still refused to address the important issues raised by him. Kharge skipped an earlier meeting of the Lokpal selection committee called on 1 March following a Supreme Court directive on similar grounds. “Notwithstanding your rhetoric to fight corruption, the BJP government has chosen to not appoint a Lokpal for nearly four years. For anybody familiar with BJP’s record in not establishing and preserving Lokayukta in Gujarat, this wouldn’t come as a surprise,” Kharge added.