Letters: Collective responsibility

Apropos Mihir Sharma's column "Damned if you do" (Ticker, April 27), the author seems to overlook one important feature of our democracy, namely collective responsibility of the Cabinet. Each ministry may be an independent institution, but only in a limited sense, insofar as the day-to-day working is concerned. Though a ministry may propose policies and methods of implementation, the Cabinet is expected to keep a check on them to ensure that there are no malafides or obvious errors of omission and commission in the ministry's policies and procedures. To that extent, the prime minister is required to play the role of a big brother watching all the time. While he may not ride roughshod over ministers, he should certainly bring contentious issues to the Cabinet and ensure that they are sorted out collectively and expeditiously in the optimum public interest. That is how the prime minister is expected to play the role of a leader. If the Cabinet decisions are taken by a majority vote instead of looking for an elusive "consensus", decisions can really be expedited.

Kishor Kulkarni Mumbai

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