New Delhi: Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj said on Tuesday that she would request to President Pranab Mukherjee to convince the government that the panel be formed unanimously and not by majority vote. Sushma Swaraj had also opposed the inclusion of senior advocate PP Rao in Lokpal selection panel.
This comes after she gave a written dissent on Rao, who was recommended as an eminent jurist on the panel by PM Manmohan Singh, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar and Chief Justice of India’s nominee Justice H L Dattu. Swaraj’s objection to Rao was that “he was too much of a Congress loyalist,” which she communicated to the PM at Monday’s meeting.
Meanwhile a four-member panel headed by the PM recommends the name of an eminent jurist to be part of the selection committee to pick the Lokpal, the President appoints the member.
Swaraj, after her bad experience at a meeting to choose the eminent jurist on Monday evening at Singh’s residence, said, “They (Congress) want to pack this body with their loyalists.”
Swaraj said that PM insisted that she agree to Rao, but she told him that he was known to be too much of a Congress loyalist. So when the panel went ahead and recommended Rao, Swaraj ensured that her dissent and that she favoured Parasaran was registered.
Swaraj told on Tuesday that she had also suggested that the decision be delayed by a couple of days and the shortlist expanded to include people like Soli Sorabjee and Harish Salve among others.
“I feel that when the country is finally getting a Lokpal after 40 years, it should be a unanimous decision. It looks like the Lokpal will also be chosen in a manner which would ensure that he or she is a Congress loyalist. It is sad since people will have no faith in the Lokpal chosen in this manner,” she added.
Bureau Report
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