Dropping of P K Bansal and Ashwani Kumar from the Union Cabinet was the joint decision of PM Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, Congress said dismissing reports that the action was at the insistence of the party president.

“It has appeared in a section of the media that it was at the insistence of Congress President Sonia Gandhi that the two Ministers were dropped. This perception is not correct.

“The correct position is that it was the joint decision of the Congress President and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,” party General Secretary Janardan Dwivedi said in New Delhi on Sunday.

The statement of Dwivedi, who is AICC Media Department chief, is significant as reports had suggested that Bansal and Kumar, two Cabinet members seen to be close to the Prime Minister, were made to resign by him late on Friday last after the Congress President expressed her displeasure over their continuance in office.

The reports had it that in a meeting with Singh, Gandhi was understood to have conveyed the party’s unease over the public perception against the government for not acting against Bansal and Kumar, who held the Railway and Law Ministry portfolios respectively.

Bansal resigned on Friday following the arrest of his nephew Vijay Singla last week for allegedly accepting Rs 90 lakh for fixing promotion in Railway Board while Kumar quit in the wake of a raging controversy over his vetting the CBI probe report in the coal block allocations scam.

The issue led to the washout of the second half of the budget session with the Opposition demanding the PM’s resignation and the sacking of the law minister.