The Congress is apparently upset about the “attitude and arrogance” of a section of its Central ministers. They include the human resources development minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, minister for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh, surface transport minister Kamal Nath, commerce minister Anand Sharma and health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.
A section of partymen, particularly the AICC general secretaries Digvijay Singh and Keshav Rao, have led frontal attacks on the ministers at various occasions.
On Saturday, AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh once again targeted Mr Sibal, seeking his attention on school education rather than higher education. “The need at the moment is that the HRD ministry should pay more attention to the development of school education and skill development centres rather than higher education, and I have full faith that they will look into the matter,” Mr Singh said at Jabalpur.
Mr Rao, who criticised Mr Sibal on the Educational Tribunal Bill in the Rajya Sabha, has been retained by the party in the HRD parliamentary standing committee, sending signals that he has the “full support” of the party high command, sources said.
Sources disclosed that the party leadership is somewhat “upset with the attitude of these ministers”. However, since they are “regarded as efficient, the Congress high command intends to continue with them at this juncture”.
It was claimed that these ministers continue to “ignore the leaders and cadre of the Congress”. A senior Congress leader said, “Congress president Sonia Gandhi has often reminded that the ministers are there in their posts because of grassroots workers” and has also indicated that the “party workers must not be ignored”. The Congress high command has suggested that during visits to the states the ministers must “go to the state party headquarters and interact with the local leaders and workers”. It was claimed that these ministers often skip visiting party headquarters or meeting any party functionary. There have also been complaints that these ministers “do not entertain any requests from partymen or leaders,” sources said.