Arjun Singh backs PM on n-deal

“I am 100 per cent with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the nuclear deal issue,” the minister said in New Delhi at the inauguration of a skill development scheme for Muslim girls.

Arjun Singh has been maintaining a studious silence on the nuclear deal issue. Singh in fact was said to be opposed to the deal so far. However, his statement on Thursday has put an end to all speculation about his opposition to the PM’s stance on the nuclear deal.

The minister continued to play the true Congress loyalist as well, attributing the whole idea of skill development educational schemes to the late Rajiv Gandhi. “I clearly remember that the original idea for vocational education came from Rajiv Gandhi’s imagination and it is the result of that we are seeing now,” Arjun Singh said referring to the Bihar Government’s Hunur project for free skill development.

“This Government has taken several steps towards expanding higher education under the 11th Plan and this ambitious plan has unfolded with the help and vision of PM Manmohan Singh. There are no politics, no differences over these issues. We must go wherever we can go, whoever we can go with as far as we can,” the HRD Minister said.

The minister had recently ruffled some feathers at 10, Janpath and his statement that there was nothing wrong with projecting Rahul Gandhi as a prime ministerial candidate had worsened things. Sonia Gandhi had also been rather cold to the veteran minister at a university convocation praising the PM for his personal imprint on the education sector.

The minister was speaking at the launch of Bihar Government’s scheme for free education to SC/ST students with the help of the National Institute of Open Schooling and the Hunur scheme to enable 12,000 Muslim girl students to train in skills like cutting/tailoring, early childhood care and education.