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Government 'suppressing dissent' in response to issues like Rafale, depreciating rupee: P Chidambaram

The opposition led by the Congress has been accusing the government of benefiting Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence Ltd. from the Rafale deal.

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Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram Friday said the government's response to issues such as the Rafale deal charges, falling markets and the depreciating rupee is to "suppress dissent".

The opposition led by the Congress has been accusing the government of benefiting Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence Ltd. from the Rafale deal. The government and RelianceDefence have dismissed all the allegations as false.

"As Rafale deal unravels, markets fall, the rupee depreciates and interest rates rise, the response of the government is to suppress dissent," Chidambaram tweeted.

"ED blocks Greenpeace accounts; IT searches Raghav Bahl's offices; BJP MPs block Estimates Committee's report and more," he said, referring to the Enforcement Directorate freezing over a dozen bank accounts of environmental NGO Greenpeace and the Income Tax Department searching media baron Raghav Bahl's home and office on Thursday.

Meanwhile, continuing its recovery, the rupee on Friday strengthened 38 paise to 73.74 against the US dollar in early trade in the forex market after global crude prices eased.

Besides, dollar-selling by exporters and banks, the greenback's weakness against some currencies overseas, helped the recovery in the domestic currency.

Brent crude fell 3 per cent to trade at 80.37 a barrel in the global market.

Forex dealers said a higher opening in the equity market also supported the rupee's sentiment.

The local unit, after hitting a record low of 74.50 Thursday, recovered 9 paise to end at 74.12 against the dollar.

An orderly depreciation of the rupee would increase competitiveness and relieve some of the pressures in capital market, said a top World Bank official earlier who described it as a "positive development" if done in a right way.

The remarks by Martin Rama, the Chief Economist for the South Asia region of the World Bank, came as the rupee hit an all-time low of 74.45 against the US dollar on Thursday.

"We think that an orderly depreciation of the rupee would increase competitiveness and relieve some of the pressures that we are seeing in general in capital market," Rama told PTI.

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