Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will take a final decision on India's vote in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the top post.
Mr. Mukherjee's comments come a day ahead of Mexican Central Bank Governor Agustin Carstens' visit here to seek support for his candidature for the post of Managing Director of the IMF.
“India's support has to be decided at the Prime Minister's level. In between, we would like to see who the candidates are,” he told reporters here when asked about country's stand on Mr. Carstens' candidature.
Earlier this week, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, who came calling here for India's support for her candidature, did not get any commitment from India.
On Mr. Carstens, Mr. Mukherjee said “I will talk to him [Mr. Carstens] as I talked to Ms. Lagarde. I know him personally. He is a known face internationally.” On Tuesday, after meeting Ms. Lagarde, the Finance Minister indicated there was no assurance on supporting her bid. “We are working on a consensus,” he said.
However, a consensus is yet to be reached on any candidate from the BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa).
India has a quota of 2.34 per cent in the multilateral lending agency. The post of IMF chief fell vacant after the ignominious departure of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in the wake of sexual assault charges against him.
