Raghuram Rajan has become a politician, doing ‘shadow-boxing on someone’s behalf’: Ashwini Vaishnaw

PTI, Aug 20, 2023, 10:56 AM IST

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Saturday called former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan a politician who is “doing shadow-boxing on somebody’s behalf”.

Vaishnaw’s remark was in reaction to a query on Rajan’s reported statement that India is not manufacturing mobile phones under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme but is only assembling them.

“When good economists become politicians, they lose their economic sense. Raghuram Rajan has become a politician. Now, he should come out in open, fight elections, conduct elections and participate in political activities. Doing shadow-boxing is not something that is good. He is trying to do shadow-boxing on behalf of somebody else,” Vaishnaw asserted.

The Minister said in the next two years, India will be achieving more than 30 per cent value addition in electronics manufacturing. Apart from this, three companies will soon manufacture important mobile phone components for the world, he added.

Vaishnaw said every country that has started manufacturing electronics has followed a path of first bringing Completely Knocked-Down (CKD) components, Semi Knocked-Down (SKD) and assemble the product. Further, the production of different components happens followed by the production of systems.

The Minister said the global supply chain today is so complex that there is no country which can claim to have a value addition of more than 40 per cent.

According to him, 40 per cent is the highest value addition any country can claim for their electronics manufacturing and India will be reaching 30 per cent plus value addition in less than two years.

“So, this kind of shadow-boxing Raghuram Rajan is doing is not a fair thing. He is a very well-accomplished economist. I request him to stay as an economist or turn into a politician,” he quipped.

Former RBI governor Rajan had accompanied Congress leader Rahul Gandhi briefly in Rajasthan during the nationwide Bharat Jodo Yatra that stretched from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. In between the country-wide march, Gandhi had also interviewed the senior economist.