NEW DELHI: The Congress said that there must have been a provocation as Reserve Bank of India (
RBI) deputy governor
Viral Acharya
decided to speak out in public against government pressure, wading into a tussle that has roiled policyplanners and dominated media coverage in last few days.
Asked about the "growing schism" between the government and the RBI, senior All India Congress Committee (AICC) leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram said, "There is only sketchy information available but there must have been some grave reason why the deputy governor delivered that speech, and in the footnote, he says that he is grateful to
Urjit Patel (RBI governor) for encouraging him to explore the subject. So, I think the matter is serious enough."
Meanwhile, party chief
Rahul Gandhi tweeted: "Nice, that Mr. Patel is finally defending the #RBI from Mr. 56. Better late then never. India will never allow the BJP/RSS to capture our institutions."
It appeared as a back-handed compliment given that the Congress and the opposition had criticised Patel for "blindly agreeing" to the Modi government’s push to demonetise currency notes two years ago.
Chidambaram said it would be better that the RBI and the government did not communicate through lectures but followed the "time-honoured practice of the finance minister and the RBI governor meeting in private" to discuss issues. "We have done that in the past and it has worked well, why are people delivering lectures across each other, I don’t know," he added.
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