NEW DELHI, 12 May 2008 — A day after being ignored by Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi at a function, Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh tried making peace with the party leadership yesterday. He virtually retracted his comments, which apparently made Sonia give him a cold shoulder.
Singh dismissed the controversy over his comments as “needless and irrelevant.” “I will always be loyal to the entire Nehru Gandhi family until I live. Interpretation of the book has caused me discomfort,” he said.
On the storm created by some of his remarks, Singh said: “This is a closed chapter as far as I am concerned.” In a press statement, he said: “I would like to put it on record that when I met Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in March 1960, I pledged my total loyalty to him and his family. This was the commitment, which is an article of faith with me. For the past 48 years of my life, I have scrupulously adhered to it. I shall also do everything to maintain the loyalty and commitment to the remaining members of the family till I live.”
Singh landed in trouble over the comments he recently made at the release of a book. Criticizing the decision-making in Congress as having fallen into disarray, Singh also described the “narrow yardstick” used by the party high command to judge a “loyalist.”
During his brief address eulogizing Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi, Singh said that they never prevented him from airing his views during a national emergency Gandhi declared in June 1975. He said he was opposed to the emergency. He made no reference to Sonia Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi.
Singh had earlier been snubbed by Sonia Gandhi for projecting her son Rahul as prime ministerial candidate.
Gandhi displayed her anger at Singh by literally looking through him at a function on Saturday. Though the two were seated on the dais, they did not exchange any pleasantries. Throughout the two-hour convocation ceremony of Jamia Hamdard University, Sonia did not even look at Singh. She barely acknowledged his elaborate “namaste.”
Singh has received scathing criticism over his remarks from several senior party leaders. It was “not appropriate” for a senior leader like Singh to make such comments, according to Congress spokesman Veerappa Moily.
