New Delhi: Making light of the controversy over disinvestment, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani has said that views on the mode of privatisation cannot be called "differences" within government.

He also said that the Kelkar Taskforce recommendations on tax reforms were only a consultation paper to elicit public opinion and not a government decision yet.

To a question on differences within the government on disinvestment policy, Advani said, "There are no differences."

"Just because there are two views on the disinvestment of the two oil companies (Hindustan petroleum and Bharat Petroleum), it cannot be said that there are differences," he said.

Even those who were committed to liberalisation and disinvestment had two views on the mode of privatisation through strategic route, Advani said.

To present this as differences within the government was not proper, he said, adding that government had been pursing the disinvestment policy for the last four years.

On Kelkar's reforms on which even sections of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had expressed reservations, the Deputy Prime Minister said that he had a brief discussion with Finance Minister Jaswant Singh.

He said that he had not gone through the recommendations yet and that the Finance Minister himself was not in agreement with some of the things mentioned in the report.

PTI