Ashima Goyal and Jayanth R. Varma voted to reduce the policy repo rate by 25 basis points and for a change in stance to neutral during the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC)

This is contrary to the decision taken by the majority MPC to remain focused on withdrawal of accommodation to ensure that inflation progressively aligns to the target, while supporting growth.

Shashanka Bhide, Rajiv Ranjan, Michael Debabrata Patra, and Shaktikanta Das voted to keep the policy repo rate unchanged at 6.50 per cent and to remain focused on withdrawing accommodation to ensure that inflation progressively aligns with the target.

The details of the individual member’s stance will be disclosed in the minutes of the meeting, which will be released on June 21

“Constructive dissent, as they say, is the bedrock of healthy deliberations amidst staying tuned to long-term objectives and hence one should not read between the lines much,” said Soumya Kanti Ghosh, Group Chief Economic Adviser, State Bank of India.

In the past, 32 of the 48 decisions of the MPC on the repo rate have been unanimous with respect to the direction of policy rate change while there was disagreement on 16 decisions. The disagreement with the ‘majority view’ was not limited to external MPC members; even internal members had differences on the size as well as direction of policy rate changes, negating views in literature that only external members help avoid “groupthink”.

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