Veteran BJP leader and chairman of its Parliamentary party L K Advani has written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urging him to involve leaders of the Opposition in the selection of the Chief Election Commissioner(CEC).
”The present system whereby members to the Election Commission are appointed by the President, solely on the advice of the Prime Minister, does not evoke confidence among the people,” he said.
Noting that a vacancy would arise with the retirement of Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi, later this month, MrAdvani suggsted constitution of a collegium comprising the Prime Minister as Chairman and Chief Justice of India, Minister of Law and Justice, Leaders of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha as members. He also suggested a ”broad-based” collegium for selecting the CAG.
Mr Advani said there was great interest and concern too in the people about how the vacancy on the CEC’s post would be filled. ”There is a rapidly growing opinion in the country which holds that appointments to Constitutional bodies such the Election Commission should be done on a bipartisan basis in order to remove any impression of bias or lack of transparency and fairness,” said the veteran BJP leader.
The veteran BJP leader also sought to point out that the credibility of this system was severely dented when a dubious appointment to the crucial office of CEC was made a few years ago. ”The time has, therefore, come to reform the selection process for the EC and other Constitutional bodies, as has indeed been done in the case of the CVC and CIC,” he said.
–UNI