Friday, September 2 2005 14:38 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Troubles for Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit appeared to deepen today (Sept 2, 2005) with Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief Ram Babu Sharma and MPs who are known to be her detractors deciding to approach Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on the issue of privatization of power.

The decision was taken after Dikshit and her Cabinet colleagues failed to turn up for a meeting convened by Sharma on the tariff imbroglio.

"At a meeting of the MPs and CWC members on Wednesday, we had told her Ministers who were present to ask her to attend today's discussions," Sharma told reporters.

"However, she sent a letter to me asking me to discuss the issue with all concerned so that it can be taken up at the Coordination Committee meeting between the Government and DPCC on September eight," he said.

Sharma said he would 'inform' about all the developments to Gandhi.

Asked whether he would meet Gandhi to discuss the developments, Sharma said, "I will write to her first and will meet her if and when given a time."

The participants at the meeting were upset that neither Dikshit nor any of her six Cabinet Ministers attended it.

Besides Sharma, those present were MPs Ajay Maken,Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar and Krishna Tirath, Congress Working Committee (CWC) members Pervez Hashmi, R K Anand and R K Dhawan and former DPCC Presidents Subhash Chopra, Tajdar Babbar and Shivcharan Gupta, most of them known detractors of Dikshit.

Tytler said that the participants were 'adamant' that the Government should not subsidies the private distribution companies for the rollback in power tariff.

Maken, Dikshit's blue-eyed boy turned bete noire, gave a presentation in the meeting alleging that the Government was favoring the discoms and not following the original agreement, party sources said.

The MP was Delhi Power Minister at the time of privatization.

Accusing Dikshit of showing 'insensitivity' towards an issue affecting lakhs of citizens, former Union Minister Tytler said, "We were not sitting here for fun. The meeting was to discuss a very important issue."

Pointing out that Dikshit had not attended Wednesday's meeting also, he said, "We can understand that she had to go to the National Integration Council (NIC), but what about today?"

Demanding that customers be reimbursed for their hiked power bills due to 'faulty meters,' he said, "I will write to the Congress President that people of the city should not be looted in this way."