The 18 dealer selection boards constituted during the tenure of Satish Sharma as petroleum minister were much more prone to influence than those constituted by Ram Naik.
This is because all the three-member boards, then called oil selection boards, had at least one politician as member. Some of the boards had even two politicians as members.
Take the case of Bihar, for instance. The oil selection board in Bihar had Ram Swarup Ram and D P Yadav, both former Members of Parliament, as its members. Himachal Pradesh
