Contrary to the widespread feeling that he has replaced Arun Jaitley to placate hardliners within the Sangh Parivar, official sources told The Financial Express that Shourie is positively inclined towards the sell-off process.

Shourie has been given the charge of the department of disinvestment (DoD) by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who transferred the DoD to Shourie from information and broadcasting minister Arun Jaitley. Jaitley has been given the law portfolio following the resignation of Ram Jethmalani.

Shourie was among those present during the meeting of home minister LK Advani and finance minister Yashwant Sinha with leaders of the SJM last week at the residence of BJP general secretary Sumitra Mahajan in a bid to placate the Sangh Parivar on economic policies. According to sources, Shourie had supported the liberalisation policies of the government at the meeting.

Shourie was briefed about his new responsibility by DoD secretary Pradip Baijal on Tuesday.

The hardliners in the RSS have been objecting to almost the entire liberalisation agenda; and, with the sale of PSUs pushed hard by Jaitley, the opposition to him reached a crescendo last week. Another complementary factor seems to be the resignation of Jethmalani.

Sources said that the anti-divestment brigade is will be disappointed, if they are looking for any help from Shourie.

PTI adds: Shourie did not get into specifics of the disinvestment process or the issues like reconstitution of the disinvestment commission.

Asked about the reconstitution of the commission, whose member secretary G Ganesh met the minister, Shourie said "I will have to consult PM on this." Asked about the Opposition to disinvestment from SJM and other members of RSS parivar, Shourie said disagreement was not an obstruction or a matter of distrust.

"In a democratic society there are different views on issues ranging from nuclear policy to planning process and so on. It is our job to pursuade others... What we are doing today is nothing new," Shourie said.

On the meeting with SJM and BJP leaders last week, Shourie said "we have five hour long disucssions... It is one of the series of meetings...

Disinvestment issue came only towards the end."

Shourie, who is holding charge of programme implementation and public grievances, said that disinvestment process would continue and that "policies are independent of ministers and are decided by the Cabinet.""We will ensure that the all disinvestment deals are `models of transparency' and the strategic sales are so devised that there cannot be any shadow of suspicion," he said.