NEW DELHI: Congress boycotted the meeting of the selection committee to pick Lokpal on Thursday, arguing that the government was misleading the nation with the pretence of involving the opposition in the consultation process.

Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge shot off a letter to PM Narendra Modi in which he accused the Centre of inviting him as a “special invitee” to “mislead the nation and the people rather than sincerely seeking the participation and opinion of the opposition”.

This is the third time that Kharge has refused to attend the meeting in which he has been invited as “special invitee”. He said a “special invitee” would have no rights of participation in the deliberations.

Kharge demanded that the Centre amend the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act to include the leader of the single-largest opposition party as a member of the selection panel. At the heart of the controversy is the fact that the Act mentions the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha in the selection panel though Congress did not get the post after the 2014 elections as it did not have the requisite numbers.

In his letter to Modi, Kharge referred to previous letters in this regard and lamented that they had remained “unacknowledged and unaddressed”.

“Under these circumstances, I must once again respectfully inform that I would not be able to attend the meeting of the selection committee until the leader of the single largest opposition party is conferred the status of a full-fledged member as envisioned in the Lokpal Act, 2013,” he wrote.

“It has been four years since your government came to power and if the government was indeed sincere about including the voice of the opposition in this process, it could have brought the necessary amendment to ensure the same,” he said.

