The Constitutional Conduct Group, a group of former civil servants, on Wednesday criticised the Congress for its decision to field former state minister Chaudhary Lal Singh in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections.

In 2018, Singh, who was then a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, had attended a rally in support of the accused persons in the rape and murder of a minor Muslim girl in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua district.

The Congress has fielded Singh from Basohli, an Assembly constituency he won in the 2014 polls on a BJP ticket.

The group of former bureaucrats said that while it refrains from commenting on internal matters of political parties and their choice of candidates, it felt compelled to protest against the Congress’ “particularly abominable decision”.

In a letter to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, the Constitutional Conduct Group said that Singh’s nomination “defied explanation that a party which has taken on itself the mantle of leading the fight against the politics of hate” should choose as its candidate a person who “represented the worst aspects of the politics of hate promoted by the Sangh Parivar”.

“He was one of the most aggressive proponents of majoritarian belligerence that fed its perverse agenda,” the former bureaucrats said.

They added: “In one of the most brazen displays of such perversity, Chaudhary Lal Singh, along with some of his colleagues, had, in April 2018, organised and led a public march in support of the perpetrators of what was probably the most horrifying hate crime in India’s recent history”.

The former civil servants were referring to the Kathua rape and murder case. After the assault, Hindutva groups had conducted a rally in support of the perpetrators.

Singh had defended his participation in the rally at the time, saying that he was there to defuse the situation.

Singh, who had switched to the BJP in 2014, rejoined the Congress in March. He served as a state minister in the coalition government consisting the BJP and the People’s Democratic Party between 2014 and 2018.

The group of former bureaucrats said that while the BJP had found Singh’s “toxicity” damaging, the Congress “evidently … now believes that by fielding him in the Assembly elections, they will be able to make a dent in BJP’s dominance in the region”.

The group said that the Congress also “saw it fit” to field Singh in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Singh lost the general election from the Udhampur constituency to BJP’s Jitendra Singh.

The nomination of Singh as a candidate showed that the Congress’ “rhetoric of bringing in a more value-based politics is both hollow and hypocritical”, read the letter signed by 96 former bureaucrats.

The group said that the party’s decision to field Singh sends a signal that “when it comes to the pursuit of political power, your party is no different from those it is fighting against”.

They added: “It also shows that your sensitivity to Muslims, minorities and other oppressed and marginalised sections can be easily sacrificed at the altar of political expediency. This is a shame.”

While the deadline to withdraw nominations for the polls is over, “we think it important to express our anger and our anguish”, the group said, adding that they hoped Kharge would make “genuine efforts to restore” their confidence in the party’s commitment to the Constitution.

Tuesday was the last date for the withdrawal of nomination for the election’s third phase, when Basohli will head for polling. The phase will take place on October 1.

The first phase took place on Wednesday and the second is scheduled for September 25. The counting of votes will take place on October 8, alongside that of the Haryana Assembly polls.