Shastri hits out at Montek again
After attacking the fuel price hike, senior Congress leader Anil Shastri has targeted Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, telling him that the government is run by “elected representatives and not the plan panel”.
Mr Shastri tweeted that “people’s mandate to run government is with elected representatives who are accountable to electorate through Parliament, not Planning Commission”.
The remarks were supportive of road transport and highways minister Kamal Nath as they came close on the heels of Dr Ahluwalia telling Mr Nath that a government cannot be run only by those who know how to build roads. Dr Ahluwalia’s statement was a rebuff to the transport minister for his charge that the plan panel was an “armchair adviser”.
Mr Nath had hit out at the Planning Commission on July 5, describing it as an “armchair” adviser oblivious to the ground realities of building roads. “Producing a book is one thing and producing a road is another thing,” he had said.
This is for the second time in a week that Mr Shastri had targeted Dr Ahluwalia. On July 6, Mr Shastri had ridiculed him over his statement that inflation would ease into a comfortable zone by December, noting that the deputy chairman had made such a statement in November last too.
Mr Shastri, who is the editor of Congress Sandesh, had last month dubbed as “disastrous” the hike in the prices of kerosene and cooking gas and had sought immediate intervention of party chief Sonia Gandhi to give relief to the common man.
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