Denials notwithstanding, civil aviation minister Ajit Singh has met UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and complained against the prime minister’s office (PMO) for the recent media leaks that show the Jet-Etihad deal in bad light.

When confronted by mediapersons after the meeting, Singh said he had visited Gandhi only to invite her for an event. But sources close to the Congress chief say that he was upset that the PMO was going to review a bilateral agreement signed between India and the UAE in April that assigns 36,670 extra seats on flights between the two countries.

What irked Singh most was the fact that the PMO and the concerned ministries were kept in the loop when the air service agreement with the UAE was signed. It was a country-to-country agreement for cooperation in the aviation sector and the UAE promised to invest as much as $50 billion in infrastructure projects. The total number of seats on flights between the two countries was enhanced to 55,000. Of this, all Indian flyers wanted 19,000 seats put together. The remaining seats were given to the UAE and not to Etihad alone.

As for the private operator Jet Airways offering 24% equity to Etihad of the UAE, it conforms the new civil aviation policy under which 49% equity can be offered to a foreign operator by an existing company.

Singh was peeved that the very government he is part of was acting as if he had done something wrong. Also, he felt that the way the PMO tried to give an impression as the controversy in the media over the deal was his own affair was against the ‘coalition dharma’.

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Gandhi is reported to have promised Singh that she would look into the matter.

Singh, whose Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) party brings five MPs to the ruling coalition, lobbied hard for the deal, defending it as “important for India”.

Etihad had promised to pick up a 24 percent stake in Jet for Rs. 2,058 crore. The deal was deferred last month by the foreign investment promotion board (FIPB) for want of some clarifications. After the FIPB clearance, it will then move to the cabinet committee on economic affairs (CCEA) for consideration. It is the first overseas investment since India allowed foreign carriers to buy up to 49 percent in an Indian airline.