A day after RBI governor Raghuram Rajan met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP MP Subramanian Swamy on Thursday kept up his attack on him and accused him of leaking “sensitive information to the world”
A day after RBI governor Raghuram Rajan met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP MP Subramanian Swamy on Thursday kept up his attack on him and accused him of leaking “sensitive information to the world”. In separate letters to the PM within a fortnight, Dr Swamy has sought immediate dismissal of the RBI governor alleging that he was “mentally not fully Indian” and has “wilfully” wrecked the economy by keeping the interest rate high.
While a section within the BJP is said to be supporting Dr Swamy stand against Dr Rajan, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley made it clear that he does not approve of “personal comments” against anyone, including the RBI governor.
“I don’t approve of personal comments against anyone, let alone the RBI governor,” Mr Jaitley told a news channel when asked about the continuing attack on Dr Rajan in the past few months and whether there was an effort on part of the government to ring-fence the governor. The RBI, the minister said, is an important institution which makes its own judgment.
To a question on views of certain corporate leaders that the rupee will crash and economy will face crisis if Dr Rajan is removed as the RBI governor, Mr Jaitley said, “I think in a democracy debate of every kind takes place. Now people make comment one way, somebody else makes the other way. I read those comments, its not necessary for me to express views on those comments.”
In a ‘6-point’ chargesheet against Dr Rajan to the PM, Dr Swamy said the RBI governor’s “insistence” on raising interest rates had “led to recession in the domestic small and medium industries and thereby causing not only a sharp decline in output but also a massive unemployment of semi-skilled labour.”
He had also mentioned that Dr Rajan “insisted on permitting Sharia complaint financial organisations to be set up” which the RBI Act had ruled out. He reiterated that Dr Rajan continued to hold on to his US Green Card “which is essentially a transitional visa arrangement for acquiring US citizenship.” The letter mentions that the “RBI governor post is very high in the Warrant of Precedence and requires a patriotic and unconditional commitment to our nation.”
Accusing the RBI governor of sending “confidential and sensitive financial information to various persons around the world on his University of Chicago unsecure personal email address,” which he said is a “reckless disregard of the national security interests of India.”
He also accused Dr Rajan of “publicly disparaging of the BJP government” despite being a government official.
Dr Swamy also said that Dr Rajan is a member of the “US dominated group of 30” whose “objectives it appears to be a group set up to defend US’s dominant position in the global economy.”
