New Delhi, May 10:Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh looked increasingly isolated in the party as a host of senior Congress leaders on Saturday joined R K Dhawan in launching fresh salvos against him for his veiled criticism of the party high command.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s displeasure was also evident at a convocation ceremony of Jamia Hamdard University where she and the minister shared the dais for around two hours without exchanging a word. In her speech, while she lauded the Government’s achievements in the field of education and also praised Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, there was no mention of the HRD Minister.

The PM who had on Friday attended a function to release a book on the HRD Minister and silently heard him vent his anger on the evaluation of loyalty being done in a “limited context” in the party, on Saturday skirted queries about the minister’s remarks.

“I do not want to comment. These are matters which are better left out,” the PM told reporters on the sidelines of a function at Rashtrapati Bhavan. He, however, added that the HRD Minister was “our great leader and we all respect him”.

Meanwhile, many senior leaders, including Digvijay Singh, Veerappa Moily, Ajit Jogi and Salman Khursheed, on Saturday disapproved of the HRD Minister’s controversial remarks questioning the functioning of the party high command. Their disapproval came a day after Dhawan had questioned the HRD Minister’s contention saying that loyalty is “commanded, and not demanded”.

In Karnataka, Digvijay Singh said the HRD Minister was “being unfair” by saying that consultation process in the party has “fallen in a bit of disarray”. He said the Congress, as a political group, always gave the highest priority to loyalists.

Moily said it was “not appropriate” for a senior leader like Arjun Singh to make such statements.

Disapproving of Arjun Singh’s remarks, Khursheed said, “Our party has a democratic set-up. But democracy does not mean that the party should follow whatever you want. If your own voice gets weak and people do not hear it, you cannot blame democracy.”

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