OCT 5: The Centre hardened its stand yesterday by deferring a decision on Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee's demand for a rollback of petroleum price hike, as most of the senior members of Vajpayee Cabinet are opposed to giving in to her meekly.Besides, Mamata's unilateral announcement that the Centre would decide on the rollback at the Cabinet meeting on October 6, without any assurance by the PM's emissary Sudheendra Kulkarni to that effect, has firmed up their resolve, highly placed sources in the Government said.``No one from the Government promised her a rollback. How could she make such an announcement?'' asked a senior Union Minister, adding everybody including the Petroleum Minister Ram Naik, had ruled out any scope for a rollback.In view of her intentions to get out of the Cabinet to prepare for impending Assembly elections in West Bengal, they apprehended some other demand after the one on rollback was met. Senior Ministers like LK Advani, Yashwant Sinha, Jaswant Singh, Pramod Mahajan and George Fernandes implored Vajpayee not to be seen as succumbing to Mamata's pressure tactics.Incidentally, this is not the first time that the Centre has taken a tough stand against a roll-back. It had stubbornly refused to give into demands by several allies to roll back price hikes in urea and PDS commodities, earlier this year.The BJP too criticised the demand for a rollback as it could jeopardise country's economy. ``Democratically it may be the right approach as sometimes compromise is part of the game. But it certainly is bad economics and in the long run would badly affect reforms in the oil sector,'' convenor of BJP's economic affairs cell, Jagdish Shettigar told The Indian Express.The United Front Government supported from outside by the Congress had decided on November 20, 1997 to dismantle the Administrative Pricing Mechanism in the petroleum sector by March 31, 2002. ``Going slow in that direction would mean higher pressure due to the approaching deadline'', said Shettigar.BJP leaders even blame the Trinamool Congress chief for not properly handling the situation arising out of the price hike. Instead of rushing in with her resignation, she could have made the high sales tax structure in West Bengal an election issue putting the Left Front Government in the dock, they say.``With West Bengal having one of the highest sales tax rates in the country, she could have asked the State Government to lower them so as to cushion the oil price hike. She could even have claimed credit for making the Centre cut down on excise and custom duty on petroleum products,'' said Shettigar.The West Bengal Government levies an amount of Rs 29 per cylinder of LPG as sales tax while the Delhi Government charges a sales tax of only Rs 12 per cylinder. Similarly, sales tax charged by West Bengal Government is 30 paise more than what was being levied on consumers in Delhi. ``Mamata is still on a strong wicket and she can still expose the Left Front Government in her home state'', he added.Shettigar said a rollback would increase the already burgeoning oil pool deficit. ``How will the oil companies import crude oil and other petroleum products and maintain normal supply since the biggest oil company Indian Oil Corporation is already budened with a loan of 2.5 billion dollars?'', he said.
