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Home » india news » Swamy now wants Subramanian's head. Has he become a liability for BJP?
 

Swamy now wants Subramanian's head. Has he become a liability for BJP?

Charu Kartikeya | Updated on: 10 February 2017, 1:49 IST
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After hounding out Rajan, Subramanian Swamy goes after Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian. Why?
Swamy's real target isn't Arvind Subramanian, it's Arun Jaitley, says Digvijaya Singh. Is he right?

Any government is well within its rights to hire and fire advisers, but they shouldn't be perceived to be doing so to further an individual's agenda. Certainly not when the person in question is a controversial figure like Subramanian Swamy.

Now that his campaign to deny Raghuram Rajan a second term as RBI governor has ended successfully, the BJP MP has started gunning for the chief economic adviser to the finance ministry Arvind Subramanian.

The US-based economist was brought in by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley himself in October 2014. Swamy claims that Subramanian has worked for American interests in the past and should be sacked for that reason. He sent out a series of tweets on the CEA on 22 June, demanding his removal. Some of his followers joined in, making the whole exercise seem exactly like the campaign that had been unleashed against Rajan.

It is believed that Subramanian is being considered to succeed Rajan at the central bank, and Swamy is out to prevent that from happening. Others see it as the direct fallout of Swamy's long-running feud with Jaitley, whom he attacks frequently through veiled references but has named openly in only one tweet this time.

Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, in fact, claimed that Swamy's real target was Jaitley, not Subramanian.

He also asked whether Jaitley himself was about to be replaced as finance minister by Swamy.

Subramanian is a hire from the private sector and so is Rajan. Advisers like them come and go. In ordinary circumstances, the process of their hiring and replacement shouldn't raise a hue and cry. This time, the problem isn't that an adviser is leaving the government and another might be compelled to as well. It's that a discredited mischief-monger is orchestrating a clamour for their removal and the government is not asking him to shut up.

Swamy had been relegated to the margins of Indian politics, until the BJP rehabilitated him by nominating him to the Rajya Sabha. Incessant rumours of him being further rewarded with a cabinet berth serve only to discredit the NDA regime. The man himself is hardly fit to occupy public office. His call for disenfranchising Muslims if they do not admit to their "Hindu origins" is not too old to have been forgotten.

He is already facing a case of breach of parliamentary privilege for making damning allegations in a debate on the basis of flimsy evidence. His twitter timeline is full of innuendos and slurs that he hides behind acronyms. Just take a look at his unsavoury tweets exulting at Rajan's decision not to stick around for another term.

The Narendra Modi regime would be well advised not to listen to Swamy anymore. In fact, it must bluntly tell him to give up his nefarious ways.

More in Catch:

Reading between the lines: did Rajan say 'Make in India' was flawed?

Is Swamy eying Jaitley's job? Economist-MP could be made Fin Min

Raghuram Rajan is an asset. Govt must stop hating him & take his advice

First published: 22 June 2016, 5:11 IST
subramanian swamy Raghuram Rajan Arvind Subramanian rbi Arun Jaitley finance ministry Digvijaya Singh NDA Narendra Modi
 
Charu Kartikeya @CharuKeya

Assistant Editor at Catch, Charu enjoys covering politics and uncovering politicians. Of nine years in journalism, he spent six happily covering Parliament and parliamentarians at Lok Sabha TV and the other three as news anchor at Doordarshan News. A Royal Enfield enthusiast, he dreams of having enough time to roar away towards Ladakh, but for the moment the only miles he's covering are the 20-km stretch between home and work.

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