Sonia to Jairam: Apologise

The minister of state for environment and forests, Mr Jairam Ramesh, who arrived from Beijing on Monday, has been asked by the Congress president, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, to apologise to the home minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, for his remarks while on Chinese soil that the home ministry’s policies on Chinese investment in this country were “paranoid” and “alarmist”.

The minister also got a sharp rebuke from the PM, Dr Manmohan Singh, who told him that he had no business commenting in public on the work of other ministries.

Sources in the Prime Minister’s Office said Dr Singh, who spoke to Mr Ramesh shortly after the latter’s return that it was “not advisable” for ministerial colleagues to “comment on the functioning of other departments, specially with regard to the relationship with important neighbours like China.”

The Prime Minister also told Mr Ramesh that “there is no confusion” about India’s policy towards China, and that “we continue to strive for constructive engagement with Beijing”. Mr Ramesh later also gave an explanation for his remarks to Mrs Gandhi.

Mr Ramesh’s utterances have proved acutely embarrassing for the government as they exposed the clear differences and squabbling within the council of ministers. They also do the Congress no good, given that it is still trying to recover from the senior leader, Mr Digvijay Singh, recently accusing the home minister of “intellectual arrogance”.

With the home minister also shooting off a missive to Dr Singh about Mr Ramesh’s remarks, the minister of state clearly had a lot of explaining to do.