New Delhi, Dec. 6: Did Arjun Singh try to “steal” a bit of the minority thunder?

Sections within the Congress think so. Because, they say, he didn’t want the Prime Minister to get the “entire credit” for the Sachar committee report on the condition of Muslims in the country.

Otherwise, why should he rush to announce the formation of a panel to examine the report’s education-related recommendations before it was discussed in Parliament?

The Sachar panel, they point out, was set up by Manmohan Singh’s office and it is the PMO which will go into its recommendations and come up with a blueprint for implementing the suggestions in concert with the minority affairs ministry.

According to a Congress source, Singh has always guarded his “pro-Muslim turf” zealously and does not like the thought of another leader from his party sharing the space, even if he happens to be the Prime Minister.

Another explanation doing the rounds is the human resource development minister is “unhappy” that a separate minority affairs ministry has been created under A.R. Antulay because of a “clash of interest”.

Antulay tabled the Sachar report in the House and parliamentary affairs minister Priya Ranjan Das Munshi made it clear yesterday that the minority affairs minister would respond or intervene when a debate takes place in Parliament.

Congress sources say that since even the education-related proposals cannot as such be separated from the rest of the report and would have to be studied in a holistic perspective, what the HRD panel hopes to achieve is “score a political brownie point over the PM and Antulay”.

The party, they add, will have to “keep its fingers crossed” and hope that the HRD minister does not announce something “controversial” on, say, the recommendation that students with certificates or degrees from madarsas should be eligible to compete in joint entrance exams for professional courses and civil services.

The sources claim that like the rest of Singh’s political “trial balloons”, the panel’s suggestions, too, might not reach their logical fruition and bring no special dividends to the Congress.