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PM, Jaswant not free for WEF summit

BS Corporate Bureau

The India Economic Summit 2002 broke a tradition. For the first time in 18 years, the summit, organised by the World Economic Forum, Geneva and the Confederation of Indian Industry, was not inaugurated by the prime minister, the finance minister or any other member of the Cabinet.

The industry officials, however, did not seem to regret the change, considering the bold and forthright comments that came from senior business leaders like Infosys chief N R Narayana Murthy and Bajaj Auto chairman Rahul Bajaj at the opening plenary session. So much so that in his closing remarks, Tarun Das, director-general of CII, said, “Why did we take so long to break this tradition?”

According to CII officials, both Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Finance Minister Jaswant Singh were requested to inaugurate the opening plenary session of the summit.

“We contacted the prime minister but he regretted his inability to inaugurate,” Tarun Das told Business Standard.

“The finance minister was unable to come because he was busy with the G-20 meeting of finance ministers. He had to attend to all the visiting finance ministers,” said Das.

“We decided not to contact any other minister because all these years, either the prime minister or the finance minister had inaugurated the summit,” Das said.

Klaus Schwab, president, World Economic Forum, also mentioned in his opening remarks that he spoke to the finance minister on Saturday but “for understandable reasons, he cannot join us this evening”.

“But we have no regrets,” said Das. “In fact, the session went off much better than in the previous years. The speakers were forthright, which would not have been possible if government officials were around,” he said.

“It has not made any difference to us. We have enough ministers attending the summit on the other days. The inaugural tradition has been broken but we have also moved forward. We have had one of the best opening sessions this time,” Bajaj said.

In the past, candid remarks made at the opening plenary had caused a lot of heartburn in the government circles.

Things hit a low two years ago when the then finance minister, Yashwant Sinha, remarked that no pleasantness was to be expected when Rahul Bajaj was around.

Even then, industry is hopeful that Jaswant Singh will attend the summit on Tuesday. “He has not confirmed, but we are hopeful,” said Bajaj.

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