Parleys continue ahead of CCD meet

NEW DELHI: Clouds of uncertainty hovered over the crucial meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment on Saturday with differences continuing within BJP and among coalition partners on divestment in the oil PSUs -- Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum.
To add to government''s headache, Sangh Parivar founthead RSS made it clear that oil is a strategic sector and should remain under state control.
Ahead of the Saturday meeting of the CCD, an informal ''mini-cabinet'' chaired by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will discuss whether or not to follow the strategic sale route for privatising PSUs in the wake of divergent views held by Cabinet ministers including those belonging to BJP.
The outcome of the informal meeting, the second to be held by Vajpayee this week, would decide whether the issue should go to the CCD later in the day.
This meeting would be attended by Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani, Defence Minister George Fernandes, Finance Minister Jaswant Singh, Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie and Petroleum Minister Ram Naik.
Naik, who had a meeting in Zurich with Fernandes last week, on Friday talked to Advani on phone within hours of his return from Brazil. He is understood to have opposed the strategic sale of equity in oil PSUs, a view also shared by Fernandes.
BJP spokesperson Sunil Shastry supported the government''s disinvestment programme even as RSS spokesman M G Vaidya questioned the rationale for privatising strategic oil PSUs and wanted the government to re-examine whether profit-making PSUs should be privatised.