Kharge turns down Lokpal meet invite

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge once again turned down the government’s request to attend a meeting of the Lokpal selection panel on Friday as a “special invitee”, saying he could not accept the Opposition being made voiceless on a critical matter. In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Kharge accused the government of using his “refusal” to attend the Lokpal selection panel meeting as an “excuse” for not appointing the country’s first anti-corruption ombudsman. He also hit out at the government for not amending the law to facilitate the participation of the Opposition in the selection process.

“Since 2014, the government has not made any attempt to amend the relevant provisions of the Lokpal Act to include the Leader of the Single Largest Party in the Opposition to be a member of the Selection Committee,” he wrote in the letter. This comes in the wake of the Supreme Court’s March 7 direction to the Centre to inform the court within 10 days about the possible dates when the selection panel for the appointment of the country’s first Lokpal would meet.

The Lokpal Search Committee led by former Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai, formed by the government last year, has forwarded three panels of names for chairperson, judicial members and non-judicial members to the Lokpal selection committee.