Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said that RBI’s decision to keep the benchmark interest rate unchanged is a “Good Call” as inflation has been kept at 6 per cent or below. RBI after its three-day Monetary Policy Committee meeting decided to pause the repo rate hike at 6.5 per cent.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, as quoted by PTI said, “The RBI has taken a good call, I think.”
On the issue of inflation, Sitharaman said that Inflation has been kept at 6 per cent or below, reported the news agency.
RBI MPC unanimously decided to keep the policy repo rate unchanged at 6.5 per cent. The decision to pause is for this meeting only, the central bank governor said.
Monetary Policy Committee will not hesitate to take any action in the future, he added.
“Looking ahead, headline inflation is projected to moderate in 2023-24. The monetary policy actions taken since May 2022 are still working through the system. Accordingly, the MPC decided to keep the policy rate unchanged to assess the progress made so far, while closely monitoring the evolving inflation outlook. The MPC will not hesitate to take further action as may be required in its future meetings.,” Das said in its statement.
Nirmala Sitharaman in a press conference in Bengaluru also commented on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. She said, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is now becoming a “repeat offender” in terms of making baseless allegations against PM.
“If Congress leader Rahul Gandhi thinks Adani has been given “all these things”, it’s not true. It was the Congress government in Kerala that gave on a platter Vizhinjam port to Adani. It was not given on basis of any tender,” said Nirmala Sitharaman.
If you look at BJP’s history & even before BJP was born, there’s an emotional connect BJP karyakartas have with Bengaluru. During Emergency, 2 of our stalwart leaders – Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji & LK Adwani ji – were arrested here in B’luru & kept in jail.
– Smt @nsitharaman (1/2) pic.twitter.com/ReKBfFkAqS
— NSitharamanOffice (@nsitharamanoffc) April 6, 2023
“So, when today Congress says that all institutions are being undermined, they should remember that during Emergency, every opposition leader was put in jail, unconstitutional 1-yr extension was given to LS & critical constitutional amendments were made,” Sitharaman added.
In Bengaluru, she also talked about the BJP’s attachment with Karnataka ahead of the state assembly elections.
“If you look at BJP’s history and even before BJP was born, there’s an emotional connection BJP karyakartas have with Bengaluru. During the Emergency, 2 of our stalwart leaders – Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji & LK Adwani ji – were arrested here in B’luru & kept in jail,” she said.
“18 times resolutions have been passed in BJP’s National Executive Meetings relating to Karnataka and its well being. There’s a well-documented history of how Karnataka has played a role in evolving BJP and BJP in turn attending to needs of Karnataka,” Sitharaman said.