For nearly 20 years, a picture of Mahatma Gandhi has featured on all Indian rupee notes prin­ ted by the Reserve Bank. Now, there are whispers that this feature may become a contenti­ ous issue between the central bank and its political overlord, the Union finance ministry headed by Arun Jaitley. It comes soon after Raghuram Rajan’s shock exit as RBI governor.

It is no secret that ever since the half smiling face of the Mahatma was placed on currency notes, it has been an eyesore for many right-wing politicians and supporters. They have kept up a strident demand to scrub Gandhi off the notes and replace him with other icons more palatable to their worldview. Many Hindutva groups hold Gandhi responsible for Partition and accuse him of minority ‘appeasement’. This is the basis for pushing for the change, though they are far from building a consensus around any alternative.

So far, the RBI has not approved of any change in the currency’s design to replace or remove Gandhi. The last redesign was in 2013-14, when an RBI committee submitted its design to the government, vetted by the RBI board. Although there were numerous petitions for inclusion of other icons, the board did not clear them. Most proposed design changes accepted by the finance ministry were simply better security features, and part of a regular redesign every five years to beat counterfeits.

The RBI, under Raghuram Rajan, has resisted demands to a change of icon from Gandhiji. “There are many great Indians we can get on notes,” Rajan said in 2014, “but I sense that almost everybody else would be controversial.” The reason, says a source, is that Gandhi is considered a “consensus icon”, unlike many proposed replacements. To replace Gandhiji with a lesser figure would thus diminish the symbolic value of featuring a national icon.