New Delhi, May 23: Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today
expressed the view that Cabinet Ministers should desist from
voicing their concerns in public, though he refused to comment directly on Home Minister P Chidambaram reported statement that he has got a limited mandate from the Cabinet to tackle the Maoists.
In an interview to a private news channelprogramme Devil’s Advocate, Mr Mukherjee said Ministers ought not to reveal differences between themselves or what was discussed at the Cabinet
Committee of Security (CCS).
”These things (differences) we do not share in public, these
things are not to be shared in public,” he said.
On Mr Chidambaram’s revelation, Mr Mukherjee said, ”I don’t
want to make any comment on what my distinguished colleague has
said, he is the best person to explain in what context he said.”
Mr Chidambaram had indicated that he was unhappy with the
limited mandate and although he had tried for greater powers which
the CCS had not granted to him.
The Finance Minister said, ”So far as I am concerned, whatever
decision is taken in the Cabinet I may have a view–I express my
views in the cabinet alone, or in the appropriate committee of
the Cabinet, and thereafter I go by the decision. I am not the
person to explain and air my views which are different from the
decision taken in the Cabinet.”
He said, ”He would never express any differences, if I have
with anybody, I share it with him or I share it in the appropriate
forum, not in public”.
Mr Mukherjee said there was no reason that the country should
worry because nobody in the cabinet had stated that ”we should
not take action against the terrorists and the Naxalites”.
Asked whether the government can agree to Mr Chidambaram
statement, he said, ”I do not know, unless we hear -I am hearing
from you that expanded mandate. What does it contain expanded
mandate, what are the elements,
what are the ingredients – when it will be discussed then we will take the decision. But again I
am telling you that I am not going to share that what decision
we will take, after the decision has been taken it will be known
to the public.”
–Agencies