Attendance, please!

On Friday evening, the decision to raise diesel, LPG and kerosene was taken at a meeting, where of the seven members of the empowered group of ministers on oil, only four were present. Sharad Pawar, M K Alagiri and Sushil Kumar Shinde remained absent. Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Transport Minister C P Joshi and Petroleum Minister Jaipal Reddy were also present in the meeting presided over by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. The meeting was originally scheduled for 1 pm, but as the Congress Working Committee (CWC) was scheduled after three hours, Mukherjee decided to gauge the mood of the party before biting the bullet. Interestingly, in the CWC, there was no discussion on inflation or the possible diesel price rise.