MUMBAI, June 18: A bitter and unsavoury saga in India’s largest business family came to an end on Friday, when the widowed mother announced “an amicable resolution”, dividing the multi-billion-dollar empire between the two quarrelling siblings.

Mukesh Ambani, group chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), the textiles-to-petrochemicals-to-energy giant, gets to retain control over the flagship of the Reliance empire, as well as Indian Petrochemicals, a company that it bought from the Indian government.

Anil Ambani, a member of the upper house of the Indian Parliament, who has been seething with anger over the alleged bid by his elder brother to take control of the empire, gets to retain his Reliance Energy and Reliance Capital, besides taking over Reliance Infocomm.

Kokilaben Ambani, widow of Dhirubhai, the founder who passed away about three years ago, announced the resolution of the sensational dispute that had demoralized the 100,000 employees at India’s premier private sector enterprise. Family friend, and chairman of leading private bank, ICICI Bank, K.V. Kamath, used his influence to bring about an end to the row.

Anil Ambani on Friday resigned as vice-chairman and managing director of RIL, whose board met here to endorse the split in the group.

According to company sources, some of the key executives who were close to Mukesh -– and had allegedly fuelled the dispute -– have also been sidelined. RIL is today one of India’s leading private sector energy firms, active in exploration, production, refining and even retail distribution of oil and other derivative products.

Reliance Infocomm, which was promoted by elder brother Mukesh, is one of the largest private sector mobile and fixed line telephony service providers in India. But the company has had a controversial track-record, and the federal communications ministry has slapped charges of avoiding inter-connect charges on the company.

Anil Ambani, who has all along been the public face of the Reliance empire, got into the upper house of Indian parliament with the support of the Samajwadi Party. He is extremely close to Mulayam Singh Yadav, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, and his aide, Amar Singh.

Married to a former Bollywood actor, Tina, Anil is ambitious and was unsatisfied playing second fiddle to his low-profile elder brother.

Both brothers have excellent political contacts, and are known to be close to both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Just last week, there was a controversy over the issue of Sonia Gandhi, the Congress President, travelling to Moscow on a Reliance aircraft.

The company, which maintains a fleet of aircraft for use of its executives, frequently ferries politicians across the country, especially during elections. Political parties claim that they pay the rentals for hiring the aircraft.

Reacting to the BJP’s allegations about Sonia using the company’s aircraft, a Congress source had accused a former BJP foreign minister of travelling in a company aircraft to Israel only recently.