Friday, July 1 2005 14:39 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kolkata: Ahead of the meeting between the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the Left Party leaders on BHEL disinvestment, veteran Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) politburo member Jyoti Basu today (Jult 1, 2005) said that the Left was expecting something positive on the Public Sector Units (PSU) disinvestment.

"We are expecting something positive," Basu told reporters Kolkata today when asked about what sort of compromise the Left parties were expecting regarding the disinvestment of BHEL, which they were opposing.

Basu was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the CPM State secretariat meeting.

The UPA Government had proposed further partial reduction of its stake in certain profit making PSUs. In case of BHEL a 10 per cent dilution by divesting its holding was proposed.

Basu declined to comment when asked whether the Left parties would agree if the level of proposed stake sell-off was lowered.

Meanwhile, the newly inducted politburo member Brinda Karat termed the disinvestment issue as, "serious."

"We don't go by speculation," was her reply when asked whether they would agree if the sell-off percentage was reduced.

The proposed meeting with the top leaders of UPA and Left on the disinvestment comes after the Left had written a letter to the UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi informing that the Left would not participate at the UPA-Left Coordination committee meetings henceforth.