Congress releases Advani's letter asking CJI be made chairman of panel to select CEC

The Congress on Friday released a letter that the then BJP Parliamentary party chairman LK Advani had written to the then PM Manmohan Singh in June 2012, demanding broad-basing of the collegium to select the Chief Election Commissioner by making the Chief Justice of India its chairman and the PM, law minister and leaders of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha as its members. But the Congress move also raised some eyebrows within the party.

While posting a copy of Advani's letter to Singh on "X", Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh reproduced excerpts of Advani's letter which read: "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 to remove any impression of bias or lack of transparency and fairness". Ramesh then commented: "No, this is not a Modi critic. This is an excerpt from the second para of a letter from Advani to then PM Dr Manmohan Singh on 2nd June, 2012. You can still find the letter on BJP's website".

While the AICC cited this old Advani letter to score a brownie point against the Modi regime a day after the regime moved a Bill not including the CJI from the proposed panel for selecting ECs despite an SC order suggesting so, yet, the move has also triggered disapproving whispers from within the Congress about the soundness of the tactics. Some in the party felt that releasing Advani letter also has the flip side of inadvertently advertising that even the Congress-led UPA regime of Singh didn't include the CJI in the selection panel for naming ECs despite demands for that. The Congress sceptics also questioned the merit of flaunting Advani's pitch given the Vajpayee government, in which Advani was a deputy PM, too didn't care to do what he had subssequently asked Manmohan Singh.