With the ministers belonging to Congress allies in the ruling UPA, such as the DMK and the NCP, A.Raja and Sharad Pawar, respectively, proving to be a headache for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Congress has now deflected the issue by claiming that in coalition politics, “individuals are not important” and “the alliance is with the parties”. Therefore, any decision on who should be ministers in the government entirely rests with the partner parties and the Congress has nothing to say. “Coalition is just compulsion politics. Our alliance is not with individuals, rather with parties. On who should be ministers in the government is entirely decided by the allies and whatever name is finalised by them are accommodated in the government,” a senior Congress leader said, adding that if at all actions need to be taken against “controversial ministers” in Dr Singh’s government, it entirely depend on their respective parties. “Look, alliances with different parties were stitched on the basis of number of ministerial berths and portfolios in the Cabinet. They finalise and forward names of their representatives in the government to the Prime Minister and thus they are appointed. So, if someone is to be removed, the respective parties have to take a final call and give alternative names,” he said.
Shielding the party behind the “coalition dharma” plank, the Congress leader said, such situation is not new to Indian politics. “Even Atal Behari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance government and the previous UPA government faced same situation several times. What happened in those cases? For the main party, unless someone is proved guilty, there is no scope for action against representatives of other parties in the government,” he reasoned, hinting towards George Fernandes, the then defence minister in the Vajpayee government and former railway minister Lalu Prasad in the UPA government in its first avatar.
Two of the ministers, Mr Pawar and Mr Raja, are in eye of a storm over IPL bidding and 2G spectrum allocation controversies respectively.
The Opposition BJP has stepped up pressure on the government to remove the two from the Union Cabinet.