"One can try to give rational answers to issues based on realities and facts but it is not possible. However, to address an obsession from which some people suffer," Singh said in a statement, "regretting accusations of the former party chief." Singh made it clear that party president Sonia Gandhi "is a leader who takes decisions herself after going through an elaborate democratic exercise" and said, "All this talk about a coterie is a figment of a frustrated mind". Singh said he was both "amazed and distressed" by the public accusation made by Kesri against him in a TV interview "defying all well defined bounds of party propriety and discipline."

"Coming from a former party president, it makes it more regrettable," Arjun Singh said refusing, however, to join issuewith Kesri publicly saying decency, decorum and discipline prohibited him from doing so.

Kesri, during a TV interview, had said, "People like Arjun Singh, who have no link with workers were calling the shots in the party.