New Delhi, May 8: The National Advisory Council is fast becoming the centre of the political storm caused by the office-of-profit controversy.

While the UPA government is trying hard to settle the issue without generating further heat on this matter, the Opposition is training its guns on the NAC, though it has agreed on a legislation to solve the office-of-profit tangle.

The controversy cost Congress chief Sonia Gandhi the post of NAC chairperson and her Lok Sabha membership from Rae Bareli, where the bypoll was held today.

The NDA, Samajwadi Party and the Telugu Desam Party all seem to have the same strategy for the second leg of the budget session that begins on May 10 ? support the office of profit bill but force the government to disband the NAC, or resist any effort to include the high-profile office on the exemption list.

“We will oppose any attempt to put the NAC in the list of exempted offices. Sonia Gandhi, as the chairperson of this body, acted as the super Prime Minister. The country cannot afford to have two Prime Ministers,” Samajwadi Party’s chief whip in Parliament Mohan Singh said.

The Desam has taken a similar stand. Its parliamentary party leader Yerran Naidu was the first to seek Sonia’s disqualification from the Lok Sabha.

“No matter whether it is an amendment to the existing act or a new comprehensive legislation, our party’s opinion is that it should be prospective and not retrospective in effect,” Naidu said, adding that the very concept of the NAC is against the spirit of the Constitution.

Both the Samajwadi Party, which took the first blow after its MP Jaya Bachchan had to resign from the Rajya Sabha, and the Desam are working in tandem. The parliamentary boards of both parties are meeting on May 10, the day the budget session resumes, to firm up their viewpoint on the issue and chalk out a strategy.

The BJP, while holding back its views on the proposed bill, has also made it clear that it will not allow “any dilution” of the constitutional provisions in this context. Regarding the NAC, it has held since the UPA came to power that as it is an extra-constitutional body, it should be scrapped.

Sources in the BJP said the party is waiting for the storm against the high-profile office to build up. The party has maintained a tactical silence so as not to disturb the process initiated by the Samajwadi and the Desam.

However, the Janata Dal (United), an NDA constituent, has openly advocated the necessity to disband the NAC.

“In a parliamentary democracy, the position of the Prime Minister is the most powerful. The NAC, as it has acted, has devalued the Prime Minister’s Office. Therefore, our party wants that the NAC should be done away with,” the party’s general secretary, Shambhu Srivastava, said. “As this office does not have any constitutional sanction, it should not exist,” he added.