Vibrant Gujarat Day 1 hinted at more thawing of the enmity between Mukesh and Anil Ambani, siblings and chiefs of the split Reliance empire.
They shared the stage at the inaugural function and Anil also reached out to his elder brother in a public gesture. He got thunderous applause when he said,
“Respected my elder brother Shri Mukesh Ambani” while addressing the audience; the elder man was in the front row at the time, with state chief minister Narendra Modi.
This is the first time the Ambani brothers came together at a public platform since L K Advani’s meeting with industrialists in November 2008.
The markets had responded positively to Anil Ambani’s decision to drop the ‘Anil Dhirubhai Ambani’ tag from the master-brand Reliance, anticipating some sort of integration between the two brothers’ businesses.
Anil and Mukesh have been involved in a bitter public battle since 2004.
The dispute peaked over sharing and pricing of natural gas from the Krishna-Godavari basin. However, the two have refrained from attacking each other in public since the Supreme Court judgement on the gas dispute.