Your party is supporting the UPA and says the Indo-US nuclear deal is in national interest. Do you also have an open mind on other reforms?
I am not anti-reformist. I think any change is full of challenges. You need a vision to make change. We will not be as dogmatic and rigid as the Left. We have our concerns, especially on foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail. The party has strong views on that.
We are, however, prepared to keep an open mind on other pending reform measures that the government has proposed like raising FDI limits to 49 per cent in insurance and banking, and pension reforms. Similarly, opening up the atomic energy sector to private sector participation is vital, otherwise there will be no benefit from the nuclear deal.
I am reminded of the time when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh first initiated economic reforms in the country. Not just radical Leftists, but traditional industrialists lost no time in forming the Bombay Club and criticising him. Today those top 20 industrialists have vanished and a new top 20 have taken their place.
It needs vision and for this we needed Manmohan Singh, an apolitical politician. In fact, I will not be surprised if a decade from now, those who are terming the nuclear deal anti-national would have reason to thank Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and Mulayam Singh Yadav.
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It is being said that your recent missives on issues like spectrum, windfall profit tax and scrapping the export-oriented unit status granted to Mukesh Ambani's petroleum refinery are due to your proximity to his estranged younger brother Anil. What do you say to that?
On spectrum, let me be very clear that I am only echoing the views of Ratan Tata, the telecom regulator and the editor of your newspaper. If these views are identical to the views expressed by my friend Anil Ambani, what can I do?
On the question of levying a windfall profit tax, well, even the democratic presidential candidate Barak Hussain Obama [smiles] favours such a tax.
Not only that, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has come down heavily on the Government of India's decision to award export-oriented unit status to the Reliance refinery. I could hardly be using the arguments put forward by the Left, the US democrats, the IEA and even regulatory agencies, your newspaper, all together for Anil Ambani's benefit.
Your proximity to Anil Ambani leads to a lot of talk whenever you intervene on policy matters.
If I had been talking of things that would lead to wealth creation for certain individuals, I would understand the hue and cry. Here I am saying that those who have profited so much must share the pain of the common man burdened by poverty.
In the good old days, my erstwhile friend Mukesh Ambani used to say, "Papa tells us we must share our gains to relieve the pain of the people." So I say: Mr Ambani, Mr Birla, you must share the pain of the middle-class.
If Anil Ambani falls in this bracket, I will ask him as well. Let me make it clear that Anil is no one to guide me vis-