NEW DELHI: Amid heated and often partisan politics over demonetisation, former PM Manmohan Singh came to the rescue of embattled RBI governor Urjit Patel on Wednesday, saying Patel need not respond to a query whether banking restrictions were not being lifted as this would result in a run on banks.
Singh pointedly intervened during a meeting of the standing committee on finance when Congress MP Digvijaya Singh suggested that Patel was not clearly answering a question on withdrawal of restrictions as he would have to admit that removal of restraints would result in chaos. “You need not answer that question,” Singh told Patel, ending the line of inquiry and MPs did not press the governor on the issue, perhaps in deference to Singh’s standing and experience as a former central bank governor himself.
The sequence of events saw BJP MP Nishikant Dubey posing two questions on “behalf ” of Digvijaya Singh as the meeting was drawing to a close on how much money had been deposited by De cember 30 and when restrictions would be removed.
