After consultations with party leaders, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has decided to invite Left leaders for talks to end the current face-off over the 10 per cent disinvestment in BHEL.Sources said the talks are to be held at the earliest. ‘‘It depends on the convenience of the Left leaders. They can be held even tomorrow,” party spokesperson Ahmed Patel said. However, others have said that this is unlikely because several important Left leaders are unavailable owing to the Rajya Sabha polls.Those present at the meeting held at 7, Race Course Road included PM Manmohan Singh, Home Minister Shivraj Patil, HRD Minister Arjun Singh, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ahmed Patel.Patel refused to comment on the disinvestment issue. Nor was he prepared to react to the Left stand against any trade-off. However, he did rule out the inclusion of other UPA partners in the exercise, saying, ‘‘Since the Left leaders have written to the UPA Chairperson, she will hold talks only with them. Then we will see (if other parties have to be involved).’’Two UPA partners, the DMK and the NCP, have both come out with public statements on the BHEL debate. The DMK has sided with the Left, while the NCP has tried to address both Congress and Left. The Congress has no intention of complicating matters further by taking the DMK and the NCP on board as it tries to sort matters out with the Left.Delhi, Himachal to retain PCC chiefsIn tune with the current Congress trend, two state presidents—Ram Babu Sharma (Delhi) and Subhash Yadav (Madhya Pradesh)—retained their posts. Several states still await appointment of new presidents after adopting one-line resolutions leaving the choice to AICC president Sonia Gandhi. Two state units are led by senior leaders—Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee (West Bengal) and AICC treasurer Moti Lal Vora (Chhattisgarh). Then there are states like Punjab, Haryana and Himachal, all party-ruled states, where favourites of chief ministers have met with strong resistance from other groups. —ENS
