NEW DELHI: BJP on Tuesday attacked LoP in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi for opposing the appointment of Gyanesh Kumar as the
chief election commissioner
and Vivek Joshi as election commissioner, saying the Congress MP’s note of dissent was politically motivated and lacked merit.
“This latest move by Rahul Gandhi is another attempt to create controversy and peddle propaganda about the CEC’s appointment. Has Rahul Gandhi forgotten how ECs were appointed during Congress rule? Despite being in power for decades, why did Congress govts do nothing to reform the selection mechanism?” Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on X. He said successive govts appointed their nominee as CEC and did not care to follow the Constitution’s directive to constitute a collegium. “It is our govt that has created a joint system for the appointment of CEC and EC, which includes the leader of the opposition. It is a great misfortune that Rahul Gandhi and Congress are acting like cry babies even when no rule/law is broken,” Pradhan said.
The minister also questioned Rahul invoking the Constitution and B R Ambedkar to make his case. “Congress never missed an opportunity to ridicule and insult Baba Saheb Ambedkar, yet the ‘yuvraj’ of Congress (Rahul Gandhi) has the audacity to take a grandstand on upholding Baba Saheb’s ideals and those of our founding leaders,” he said.
BJP IT department head Amit Malviya referenced the March 2, 2023, ruling by a five-judge constitution bench, which revised the appointment process to include recommendations from a committee comprising the PM, LoP, and CJI, but only until Parliament legislated otherwise. Malviya said the appointment process is “more structured, transparent and inclusive,” involving multiple stakeholders, including the LoP.
On the appointment process, he said a search committee, led by the law minister (currently Arjun Ram Meghwal) and two senior bureaucrats, shortlisted five candidates and the list was sent to a selection committee.
