Comments
The Prime Minister should be a political leader in his own right, and he cannot be decisive if he is the second-most or the third-most important person within his own party, said Yashwant Sinha, Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance.
“In 2004 (when the Congress-led UPA Government came to power), we divorced the Prime Minister’s post from the political leadership. The PM is not the cabinet secretary of the Government of India. The PM is the PM.”
Constitutional bar“….He cannot be decisive, if he is the second person or the third person within his own party. So, this is where the fault line was created,” said Sinha at a conference organised by the Indian Merchants’ Chamber here on Saturday.
Referring to the arrangement in the Congress Party, whereby the PM runs the Government and Sonia Gandhi looks after the political affairs, the Lok Sabha MP observed that this distinction is not permitted by the Indian constitution.
“The constitution expects the PM to be the leader of his party and the leader of this country. Due to this division of responsibilities, we sowed the seeds of irresponsibility – we had power on the one hand without accountability, on the other we had accountability without power,” Sinha said.
ramkumar.k@thehindu.co.in
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.