Will Shaktikanta Das, the longest serving RBI governor, continue to wage the arduous battle?
While Das may well get an extension (perhaps for a year), no one would have asked the question even a few months ago.
But despite all the accolades and after running a steady ship, Das is completing his six eventful years in RBI on a sombre note: missing inflation target, senior ministers stoking a simmering controversy over computation of inflation, RBI’s reluctance to spot a slowing growth and the regulator’s stern measures to diffuse loan bubbles worsening the consumption squeeze. All this is grist to the rumour mills that are spewing names of possible successors: a finmin official, other senior bureaucrats and even one RBI deputy governor with whom a key PMO person had a long chat recently.
Rarely, if ever in the past, markets have been left guessing whether the man who is presiding over the crucial 2-day monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting (on Wednesday and Thursday) would be around to oversee the impact of the MPC measures.
But gossip, like markets, can take on a life of its own. The fog may clear over the weekend. The chart is a rough scorecard of the story so far.
