New Delhi: Internal wrangling continued among Congress ranks over the Ram Setu affidavit fiasco even though party chief Sonia Gandhi is reported to have taken a dim view of the factional fight over the issue.
Tired of the backbiting, the party high command had over the weekend told the feuding Congress ministers to shut up and concentrate on their assigned work.
The mud slinging continued nonetheless. On Monday, senior party leader RK Dhawan took potshot at Union Culture Minister Ambika Soni, saying it would have been better if she had resigned on moral grounds.
A Congress Working Committee member, Dhawan said Soni could have submitted her papers to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party chief Sonia Gandhi, leaving the matter to them for a decision.
Dhawan, however, said that Union Minister Jairam Ramesh should not have gone public over Soni’s resignation issue. He said Ramesh could have taken up the matter with Prime Minister and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
“If they had rejected Soni's resignation, then Ramesh could have resigned citing difference of opinion,” Dhawan, who had been a close aide of Indira Gandhi and for some time of Rajiv Gandhi during their Prime Ministerial tenures, said.
AICC General Secretary Digvijay Singh and UPCC President Salman Khurshid have already come out in open support of Soni and have sought to rubbish the demand for her resignation.
Officially, the AICC has sought to steer clear of the controversy. Singh and Khurshid suggested that Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh's remarks in Kolkota a couple of days ago — that he would have owned up moral responsibility and quit if he had been the culture minister — were made without being in the know of things about the delicate matter.
(With PTI inputs)
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