NDA leaders meet Kalam on Navin Chawla

The Opposition move came in the wake of reports that AG has given Chawla a clean chit over his conduct as EC.

Stepping up their offensive, an NDA delegation on Saturday met President APJ Abdul Kalam with an appeal to direct Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to forward an Opposition petition for the removal of Election Commissioner Navin Chawla to the Chief Election Commissioner.

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After the meeting, senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh told reporters that his party colleague Sushma Swaraj also "respectfully reminded" Kalam that their last month petition seeking removal of the Election Commissioner should have been directly sent by the President to the CEC.

The Opposition move came in the wake of reports that Attorney General Milon Banerjee has given Chawla a clean chit over his conduct as Election Commissioner following an NDA complaint to the President that he had "close links" with the Congress and its chief Sonia Gandhi.

"Neither the Prime Minister nor the Attorney-General had any role in this matter. It is the CEC alone who has the sole Constitutional jurisdiction to recommend any action (against an Election Commissioner) to the President," Jaswant Singh said.

"Yet, the moot point remains that as per Constitutional norms, the authority to examine all this is the CEC alone, whose recommendation only is to be considered by the President," it said.

NDA convenor George Fernandes and BJP leaders VK Malhotra, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi were part of the delegation that called on Kalam.