Former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor Viral Acharya has revealed in a prelude to his book that the RBI resisted a government plan in 2018 to extract Rs 2-3 lakh crore from its balance sheet for populist spending in the run-up to the 2019 general elections. The government even considered invoking a never-used section of the RBI Act to issue directions to the central bank.
