India?s Montek not eyeing IMF job

Deputy Chairman of India?s Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia said he was not eyeing the top post at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), after he was touted as a possible candidate following current chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn?s arrest.

Media reports said Ahluwalia, credited as a key figure in India?s economic reforms post-1980s, was one of the top potential people to take over the IMF after Strauss-Kahn found himself being arrested for sexual assault.

An Indian television channel also quoted a senior American official saying that the Indian adviser was the best bet for the beleaguered agency at the moment. The US apparently was pursuing a “policy for diversification” on IMF and World Bank posts and wanted non-Europeans to take their helms.

But Ahluwalia seemed to downplay the hype and said he would wait and see how Kahn’s case evolves. ?I am not looking for any such thing,? he said, adding that would wait and see who the IMF comes up with as the next head.

Ahluwalia has already served as the first director of the IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office in a career that began at the World Bank and later the Indian government?s finance ministry in 1979 as an economic adviser.

He is seen as a supporter of open markets, who pushed India?s deregulation of fuel prices and helped remove barriers to foreign businesses while working as the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission of India since 2004.

Ahluwalia is among the list of other candidates, including Kemal Dervis of Turkey, Christine Lagarde of France, Trevor Manuel of South Africa and even Britain?s Gordon Brown, who were being pitched as possible IMF heads after Kahn was arrested on Saturday.

A prospective Socialist Party presidential candidate in France, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was arrested on Saturday for allegedly sexually assaulting a maid of a Manhattan hotel and his bail plea was rejected on Monday.