The Union government has reportedly decided to make 710 files of the National Advisory Council led by Sonia Gandhi during the UPA government, public.
The New Indian Express reports that the files “provide a glimpse of the ecosystem that exercised absolute power with no accountability over the government between 2004 and 2014 and reveal the influence the NAC, formed under the chairmanship of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, exercised on policy-making in coal, power, disinvestment, real estate, governance, social and industrial sectors.”
According to TNIE, which is reported to have access to these files, the files show that Manmohan Singh-led PMO and the UPA government had little choice but to implement suggestions of the NAC.
The powerful body reportedly summoned bureaucrats, wrote to ministers and sought compliance reports.
The TNIE reports also quotes from the files, showing how her suggestions were implemented on priority.
The NAC has been criticized in the past as the “super cabinet” and “unconstitutional”.
The BJP had alleged then that its constitution under the chairmanship of Sonia Gandhi was unconstitutional, and that the way the Congress ministers are showing all the important files to Gandhi, she is acting like a super prime minister, side-stepping Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
"The appointment of Sonia Gandhi as Chairperson of NAC has given rise to a psuedo-constitutional power centre. We already have a shaky Prime Minister reeling under challenges of price rise, terror and failed diplomacy added up with charges of messing up the economy," BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy had then said.