Jabalpur, April 26: Leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani today urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to disband the National Advisory Council, saying it is an “extra-constitutional” and “unnecessary” body.

Advani, whose Bharat Suraksha Yatra has received a low-key response in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, claimed that in June 2004, the NAC was created to give “powers without any accountability” to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

Addressing a public meeting, he said: “The BJP was always of the view that the NAC is an unnecessary and extra-constitutional body created solely to provide a cover to Congress president Sonia Gandhi to exercise power without any accountability in the Union government.”

In effect, the NAC downgraded the high constitutional office of the Prime Minister, he added. “I am asking Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to disband it since it is the duty of the PM’s office to review and monitor the functioning of the government and no one else.”

Referring to the office-of-profit controversy, Advani said the UPA government should take people into confidence on the legislation it proposes to introduce on the matter.

His yatra has rolled into Madhya Pradesh at a time when Uma Bharti, who recently split from the party, is set to float a outfit in Ujjain on Sunday. In state BJP circles, there is a degree of unease over what is being seen as Uma’s final seal on the divorce.

A section of the state BJP is still loyal to the sadhvi and has privately been telling senior party leaders about the huge losses it fears in the next round of Assembly polls. By a conservative estimate, the leaders think the party might lose about a third of the seats it had bagged in 2003. At present, the BJP has 172 MLAs in the 230-member House.