Cong: Sacking was PM, Sonia joint call

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Police personnel charge water canon on Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha activists during a protest near Prime Minister’s residence

Seeking to dispel the perception that AICC chief Sonia Gandhi pushed reluctant Prime Minister Mamohan Singh to drop two ministers Ashwani Kumar and Pawan Kumar Bansal from the Union Cabinet, the Congress on Sunday insisted that the two leaders took the decision “jointly”.
In an unusual rebuttal of the speculations in media, which said Mrs Gandhi had prevailed over Dr Singh, who was not keen on removing the ministers, AICC general secretary Janardan Dwivedi, who is also party’s media department chief, said, “It has appeared in a section of the media that it was at the insistence of Congress president Sonia Gandhi that the two ministers were dropped. This perception is not correct. The correct position is that it was the joint decision of Congress president and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,”
Both Mr Bansal and Mr Kumar are considered to be close to the Prime Minister and come from his home state Punjab.
Citing the reports, senior BJP leader L.K. Advani took a dig at the Prime Minister, saying he should now call it a day as he appeared to have “abdicated” his right to decide on his own Cabinet. “Has the Prime Minister abdicated his right even to decide about his own Cabinet? Today’s news reports about the removal of two Union ministers generally emphasise that, it is Soniaji who has sacked ‘two PM’s men’. Sheer self-respect demands that the PM calls it a day, and orders an early general election,” he wrote on his latest blog post.
The reports had suggested that in her meeting with Dr Singh, Mrs Gandhi conveyed the party’s unease over the public perception against the government for not acting against Mr Bansal and Mr Kumar, who held the railway and law ministry portfolios, respectively.
Mr Bansal resigned on Friday following the arrest of his nephew Vijay Singla last week for allegedly accepting `90 lakh for fixing promotion in Railway Board while Mr Kumar quit on the same day in the wake of a raging controversy over his vetting the CBI probe report in the coal block allocation scam.