Why was the decision to divest BPCL put off by the government?

With the government deciding to put off the decision to sell BPCL stake, the question is what was the driver? In fact, there were already 3 contenders for the stake of the government in BPCL viz. Apollo Global, I-Squared Capital and Vedanta. However, subsequently Apollo Global and I-Squared opted to withdraw leaving just Vedanta in the fray. The government was anyways not getting the kind of valuations it really wanted.

In a sense, the bidders have their own reservations. In the case of Apollo Global and I-Squared, they could not find willing investors to put the money into a fossil fuel business. . That was the reason Aramco and Rosneft had also opted out. Additionally, valuations in the oil sector are shifting towards green energy and BPCL is not too strong on that front. Lastly, fluid fuel pricing mechanism was also a villain. In Q4, OMCs took big losses on account of the price of fuel increasing in sync with the spike in crude oil prices.