At the Express Group?s Idea Exchange programme in August 2009, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had urged the Ambani brothers to settle their dispute soon in the larger interest of the nation and the capital markets.
?That is why the Prime Minister himself has said that both of them should try to sort out their issues.?
On Sunday as the two brothers found their way to a rapprochement, this was the dominant theme in Delhi?s political circles. The settlement will help the economy and capital markets, ministers said. Besides, the fight had divided parties and government, with several government ministers taking sides. ?All that hopefully will end now,? said a relieved senior minister in the government. But none of them were willing to come on quote, preferring to wait for the government or the parties to react.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will address a national press conference on Monday, the first after assuming office in his second term and it is expected the developments could figure among the topics.
Sources close to the developments say that the agreement was in the works a week after the Supreme Court judgement on the RIL-RNRL gas pricing issue. ?After an initial booster even RIL shares started feeling the heat,? said a senior minister.
Within a week of the judgement, Anil Ambani, chairman of his eponymous group made a visit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh?s office. His visit was followed within a week by elder brother Mukesh Ambani, too.
While PMO sources confirm that these meetings took place, they added that the Prime Minister had kept himself aloof from India?s top corporate battle.
Not so much his council of ministers who felt increasingly uncomfortable with it.
?During the court case, while everyone knew that the government?s stand was strong, the impression that the government appeared to be batting for one brother against the other was upsetting to many,? said a source. Petroleum minister Murli Deora, who in his previous avatar as president of the Mumbai Congress Committee had good relations with the late Dhirubhai Ambani was attacked in Parliament for partisan behavior in the matter.
?This was as bad as the rumoured fight between two Bollywood superstars, which divided the place into camps,? said an opposition MP.
?After the climax of the court verdict both brothers discovered that they had to get across each other on the negotiating table, and this is where the talk of a rapproachment began,? said the minister.
It is no secret that many Congress and even BJP leaders are close to the two brothers and may have conveyed some of these sentiments.
?But ultimately it was business sense that drove this, which will be borne out when the market opens tomorrow morning,? said another party source.
The last word on this was put succinctly by a senior Rajya Sabha MP from the opposition ranks. ?I have some ADAG shares which tanked in the last two weeks, hopefully I will be able to recover my money,? he said. That is the bottomline.