Is Sardar Manmohan Singh back in action? It would appear so from the slew of decisions he has been taking lately. Top of this was the snub to Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. While the Cabinet cleared the projects the minister wanted for her home state of West Bengal, it was made clear that this was being done only to prevent her from telling the press that the government was anti-Bengal, and that she would have to find the funds for the projects herself — that is, either from greater receipts from the Railways or through public private partnership routes. This was followed up by a proposal to hike fertiliser prices in the face of opposition from fertiliser minister MK Alagiri, the son of the DMK (Congress party’s ally)chief.
If this wasn’t enough, the prime minister asked his office to send a letter to the telecom ministry (headed by the DMK’s A Raja) asking it to give a fortnightly update on the progress of the 3G spectrum auction and on what action the ministry planned to take in the next fortnight — it was due to this kind of pressure that the ministry has now said it will restart the auction process later this week.
Does this signify a change in the way the government is going to work, or are we just clutching at straws?
Ashish Gupta, New Delhi
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