Centre excluding Opposition from Lokpal selection process: Kharge

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi led Union Government wanted to exclude the Opposition from the Lokpal selection process.

He alleged this in a letter to Prime Minister Modi, which he wrote in response to the government's invitation to him to attend the Lokpal Selection Committee meeting as a Special Invitee.

"Inviting the leader of a single largest opposition party as a 'Special Invitee' is done with the singular intention to excluding the opinion of the opposition from the selection process of the Lokpal. The government is well aware that there is no provision in the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act for a Special Invitee to be a member of the Selection Committee," Kharge wrote.

He added that an invitation as a 'Special Invitee' without rights of participation, recording of opinion and voting in the procedure is only to mislead the nation and the people, rather than sincerely seeking the participation and opinion of the opposition.

Kharge, who had received a similar invitation in March this year, said that he was deeply disappointed with the Narendra Modi-led Central government as not only did his earlier letter go unacknowledged, but concerns that he had raised earlier continued to go unaddressed.

Kharge informed Prime Minister that he would not attend the said meeting as "to participate in this charade while your government runs roughshod over the intent and spirit of the Lokpal Act would amount to dereliction of my constitutional duty."

He claimed that Modi government is not interested in fighting corruption as it has wasted four years by not amending the Lokpal Act to include the Leader of the single largest party in the Lok Sabha as a member of the Selection Committee.