Govt vs RBI: What is the need to invoke Section 7 now, asks Chidambaram

Slamming the government for reportedly referring to a never-used clause of the RBI Act directing the central bank to implement its wishes, former Union finance minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday alleged that the BJP dispensation is "hiding facts" about the economy and is desperate.

The senior Congress leader said that the governments he was a part of in the past had never used Section 7 of the Reserve Bank of India Act of 1934, under which a direct order can be issued by the government to the central bank to carry out its wishes in "public interest".

"If, as reported,