Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reluctance to go after wilful bank defaulters led to the resignation of former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Urjit Patel.
“Efforts to clean the banking system cost him his job. Why? PM didn't want him to go after wilful defaulters”, Mr. Gandhi tweeted and tagged a news report.
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The report stated that “moves to dilute a new bankruptcy law caused disagreements between Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and the central bank, according to former Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel”.
The report referred to Mr. Patel’s recently launched book Overdraft: Saving The Indian Saver, in which he says that the decision to ‘dilute’ the bankruptcy law caused a rift between the central bank and the Union government.
It also referred to Mr. Patel’s former colleague and ex-Deputy Governor of RBI Viral Acharya’s yet to be released book in which Mr. Acharya argues that proposed changes to the governance structure of RBI resulted in the departure of the former RBI Governor.
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Mr. Patel, who succeeded Raghuram Rajan as RBI Governor in August 2016, had one of the shortest tenure and resigned in December 2018, citing ‘personal’ reasons.
