PM in selloff mode, focus on Plan panel meet

NEW DELHI: With Prime Minister A B Vajpayee launching into a bold defence of disinvestment, spotlight is now trained on the coming meeting of the of the Planning Commission which is expected to clear the final draft of the 10th five year Plan.
The document with its strong emphasis on disinvestment and advocacy for letting in FDI easily and in greater volumes and the prime minister is expected to seize upon the opportunity to ampify the pro-disinvestment message he sent out last evening.
The meeting will be attended by the finance minister Jaswant Singh who has sided with those opposing the strategic sale of HPCL and BPCL.
His expected remarks at the meeting will deprive the anti-disinvestment faction the optioin of continuing to pretend that Vajpayee’s speech left room for dissent and demands for review. The wiggle room can shrink with the PM expected to go farther. He has signaled his intent also by picking disinvestment minister Arun Shourie to accompany him on his forthcoming foreign trip.
NDA-watchers feel that Vajpayee reacted the way he did yesterday because he has, like many others in the government, come to view the sudden outbreak of anti-disinvestment protests as a disguise to challenge his authority.
The suspicion, triggered off by the way political minnows like the urban development minister Ananth Kumar questioned him at the September 7 meeting of the CCD, turned into conviction when various offshoots of Sangh Parivar launched a concerted capaign to question his authority citing one excuse or the other.
Political observers haven’t failed to notice that Mr Vajpayee’s launched into his defence of disnvestment minutes after RSS chief K S Sudarshan’s anti-reforms rhetoric at a rally here.
The fight marks only the second instance after 1969 where a battle for supremacy has been cloaked as an ideological conflict over economic policy.