Rajan an Indian citizen, holds Indian passport, reveals RBI

The Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday clarified the citizenship of central bank Governor Raghuram Rajan and said he is an Indian citizen and holds an Indian passport.

The RBI gave a clarification three years after questions were raised on Rajan's citizenship status.

When Rajan's name was cleared by the government for the top job at RBI in 2013, senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi had given a notice of calling attention in Parliament asking how a foreigner could be appointed as the central banker. He had also said there were enough Indians to run the RBI.

Recently, BJP MP Subramanian Swamy trained guns on Rajan and wrote a strongly-worded letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking him to remove the RBI Governor.

Swamy said, "He is in this country on a Green Card provided by the US government and therefore not mentally fully Indian."

Swamy has time and again attacked Rajan for the alleged failure of his policies. "I feel Raghuram Rajan is not appropriate for the country. The country has suffered because of the way he raised interest rates saying that inflation will be curbed. He should be relieved as soon as possible and sent to Chicago," Swamy had said on May 12.