P Chidambaram says Centre totally confused on Air India assets sale, should sort out its mind

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Monday alleged that the government was “totally confused” on the Air India assets sale and asked it to “sort out its mind” before attempting to tackle the problem. The former finance minister said, “As far as Air India is concerned, it is not clear to me what they intended to do. It is neither privatisation, nor an arrangement to run it as a joint venture.” “Without a clear policy objective, you cannot succeed in selling 74 per cent. You must have a clear policy objective,” he told reporters here. He said he was not not clear what the government’s policy objective was and alleged that it was “very confused and left everybody confused”. “When the market is totally confused about the objective of the government, nobody is going to bid… I think the government was totally confused about what it wanted to do. “First it must sort out its mind before it attempts to tackle the Air India problem,” he said. Chidambaram also took a dig at the Civil Aviation Ministry for putting out a statement even 24 hours before the bidding was due to close, claiming that there will be a flood of applications in the last 24 hours.