New Delhi, May 26 (ANI): Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday said he was in touch with finance ministers of other developing nations to gather support for a candidate to head the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
A fierce succession battle for the coveted top IMF post was triggered after its head, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, resigned for his involvement in a sex scandal.
Mukherjee said that he was in constant touch with the ministers, as developing countries need to stand united in such times.
"I had a discussion with South African Finance Minister (Pravin Gordhan) over telephone. Our executive directors have issued the joint statement belonging to BRICS countries, that is India, Russia, China and South Africa. So, we are trying to consolidate a position where we can take a view on it," he told reporters here.
In a recent statement, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, known as the BRICS, said the choice for the IMF top post should be based on competence and not nationality, and called for 'abandoning the obsolete unwritten convention that requires that the head of the IMF be necessarily from Europe'.
India has been talking with other emerging countries to build support behind a common candidate from a developing nation to head the IMF, with Mexico's central bank chief Agustin Carstens a possibility.
Following Strauss-Kahn's resignation, Europe has made it clear that it wants to stay in charge of the multilateral lender at a time when it is helping to bail out Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde has emerged as a frontrunner for the top position, although her nationality may count against her.
A French national has run the IMF for 26 out of the past 33 years and the embarrassment over the Strauss-Kahn incident may make it difficult for Paris to make a case.
Strauss-Kahn, 62, is facing charges of sexual assault on a hotel maid in New York. He was recently released on a $1 million cash bail and is now placed under house arrest, as he awaits trial in his attempted rape case. (ANI)
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