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Officials in the Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry were in for shock on Monday, after receiving a letter from the Election Commission stating that it saw no reason to review its earlier decision on deferring the announcement of new gas price.

All the senior officials in the Ministry were unaware that any such request had been made to the Election Commission. An official in know of the development told Business Line that “it seems a few days back (May 1 probably), Minister M Veerappa Moily had written to the Commission seeking review (we presume) of its earlier decision. Since, no one in the Ministry has seen the letter by the Minister the exact content is not known.”

Moily’s critics see it as a loss of face for the Minister.

On March 24, the Election Commission had told the Ministry to defer notification of the new gas price that was to come into effect from April 1. Any new decision was now to come only after the General Elections. The new price for the domestically produced gas was expected to be almost double the existing price of $4.2/unit. The new price to be notified became a poll issue, with a section of the Opposition alleging collusion between the Government and Reliance Industries Ltd.

Though the notification of the new price did not attract the model code of conduct, the Ministry had played safe and referred the matter to the Election Commission as it did not want to be seen as favouring a corporate house.

On May 1, Moily had defended himself against allegations made by Gurudas Dasgupta, a senior member of Communist Party of India stating that the revised price is applicable for all domestically produced gas and not just that from Reliance Industries operated KG-D6 block.

He said, “When the Government was in the process of notifying the price for the April-June 2014 quarter, the General Elections were announced and the model code of conduct came into force on March 5.”

Permission of the Election Commission was sought, Moily said, adding that the Commission ordered that the proposal be deferred till the model code of conduct was in force. Allegations have been made that the Government was favouring a corporate house - Reliance Industries - when deciding to notify the new gas price as soon as the model code of conduct ceases to exist (on May 17). Expectations are that if it is clear mandate, then the Election Commission could notify by May 18-19 the formation of new Lok Sabha. BJP has already stated that it will review the pricing.

Source-On Request