Not in race of Finance Minister: Deepak Parekh

NEW DELHI: Days ahead of swearing-in of new government, industry doyen and HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh has said he was not in the race to become Finance Minister. "There is not an iota of truth. Don't believe in rumours. There is no truth whatsoever," he said when asked if he could be the next finance minister.

However, he added that he will always do whatever the government asks of him.

"The people in the government who are running the country, they have to take a view, they have to then decide whom they want to take advice from, do they want advice or they know it, what are the areas they want to pick expertise from, which are the areas they take expertise from," Parekh said in an interview to private news channel CNBC TV18.

Praising good works of the outgoing Finance Minister, Parekh said "Mr. (P) Chidambaram did an excellent job during the last six-eight months single handedly by taking tough decisions and by doing things, appointing Raghuram Rajan as RBI Governor and number of things but the feeling was that the government was not working, the communication was not there."

However, he added there was no inter-ministerial cooperation and that had caused "the businessman to feel that we need a change, we need a government that works well."

The new government would assume charge with swearing-in of Prime Minister designate Narendra Modi and members of his Cabinet on May 26.

There are speculations that Modi could give Finance portfolio to senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley or Subramanian Swamy. DP CS ANZ MR