Monday, December 5 2005 15:03 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Congress today (Dec 5, 2005) said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh fully backed the party's Steering Committee decision to remove beleaguered K Natwar Singh as its member even as another Union Minister said it was time for him to quit the Government.

"The Prime Minister, who is away in Moscow, has been briefed about the decision of the Steering Committee last night. He is one with the resolution of the Steering Committee," party General Secretary Ambika Soni told sources.

Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal bluntly stated that the Minister without Portfolio should take a cue from the Steering Committee's decision.

"Natwar Singh has an acute mind, he understands subtleties of the game," Sibal told reporters, adding that the Minister, under the eye of the storm over the Volcker issue, has to decide himself whether he should stay in the Government in the wake of his removal from the party's highest policy making body.

Stating that it was for Natwar Singh to take the signal, he said that political parties are above individuals and Singh knows that.

At the same time, he said that removal of Singh from the Steering Committee did not mean that he was guilty. "It is for the Pathak Inquiry Authority to decide who is guilty," he said, adding that the Committee's decision was a 'political' decision.