Divestment Minister Arun Shourie will lead the Indian delegation to the two-day World Trade Organisation mini-ministerial in Montreal beginning on Monday, which would try to narrow down differences on contentious issues in multilateral trade negotiations.
This decision has been taken as Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley, who is also holding the law portfolio, would be required to be present in Delhi in the face of the raging controversy in Parliament on the alleged dropping of conspiracy charges, by the Central Bureau of Invetigation, against Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani, Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi and six others in the Babri Masjid demolition case.
Opposition parties have served a privilege notice in Parliament against Jaitley, entrusted with the task of defending the government in the debate on the issue in both Houses of Parliament early this week.
The Montreal mini-ministerial is perhaps the last before the WTO ministerial at Cancun in Mexico in September. The mini-ministerial assumes significance as strategies are expected to be evolved to narrow differences on contentious issues like agriculture, Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights and Public Health and four Singapore issues of investment, competition, government procurement and trade facilitation.
Before Jaitley took over the commerce portfolio early this year, Shourie was temporarily in charge of the ministry during which he led the Indian delegation to the Sydney mini-ministerial late last year.
