Soni assails Aiyar for impropriety

NEW DELHI: Amid a raging debate over prime minister Manmohan Singh’s advice to the industry to focus on the “aam adami”, Union minister Ambika Soni has dismissed suggestions that it was guided by the successive poll reverses of the Congress or under pressure from the Left.

Ms Soni also attacked her Cabinet colleague Mani Shankar Aiyar for committing an impropriety by breaking the “mantra of Cabinet’s collective responsibility”. “I don’t think this (PM’s appeal) is election-oriented... the government doesn’t decide its policies, its steps and its time schedules only looking at election results. And certainly not under the pressure of the Left Front,” she said.

Mr Aiyar had called attention of the industry to shift focus on the “aam adami”, ahead of Singh who aired identical views in his address to CII. Taking exception to Mr Aiyar’s remarks, she said by doing so he usurped what ought to be “the prime minister’s prerogative”.

“You know, a cabinet minister is not the prime minister.... That’s the prime minister’s prerogative... I believe there is a certain propriety which one does follow when one is a member of the Cabinet,” she told a new channel.

“Mani should not be speaking outside. There may be a debate within the Cabinet... if a discussion has taken place, you are not supposed to speak about it outside,” Soni said. “If we don’t follow this mantra of cabinet collective responsibility I don’t think any government can function.”