BJP lawmaker Subramanian Swamy has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi recommending that he “consider terminating the appointment” of Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan “effective immediately or when his term ends” in September.
“The reason why I recommend this is that I am shocked by the wilful and apparently deliberate attempt by Dr Rajan to wreck the Indian economy,” he wrote adding his concept of raising interest rates to contain inflation was “disastrous.”
Also, bad loans with public sector banks has doubled to c in two years, he said.
“These actions of Dr. Rajan lead me to believe that he is acting more as a disrupter of the Indian economy than the person who wants the Indian economy to improve. Moreover he is in this country on a Green Card provided by the US government and therefore mentally not fully Indian.
Otherwise why would he renew his Green Card as RBI Governor by making the mandatory annual visit to the US to keep the Green Card current?” he wrote.
The letter follows Mr Swamy’s suggestion last week that Raghuram Rajan – who teaches at the Booth School of Business at Chicago University and is on leave to serve as the central bank’s governor – be “sent back to Chicago”.
In his letter to the PM, Mr Swamy points out that it was the previous Congress led UPA government that appointed Dr Rajan.
“Don’t politicise the RBI governor’s post, these are hallowed institutions and respected. Manmohan Singh appointed him with due consideration,” said senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, reacting to Mr. Swamy’s comment.
However, the RBI Governor has not yet responded to the multiple attacks by Swamy, who had hit out at him last year too.
Swamy, while speaking at a function on Monday, said that time had come to think of major economic reforms in India for the sake of the country’s economy.
“It is about time we think of major economic reforms to set our house in order,” Swamy said this while delivering a lecture on ‘India in global economy’, organised by city-based NGO Delhi Study Group here.
Swamy also blamed Raghuram Rajan for non-availability of cheaper capital in the country.
