Voices for interest rate cut are growing within the Reserve Bank's rate-setting panel with external member Ashima Goyal joining ranks with another member Jayanth R Varma who for long has been advocating to reduce the key policy rate by at least 25 basis points. Reserve Bank's monetary policy committee voted for a status quo in repo rate with four members voting in favour and two against. "Dr. Shashanka Bhide, Dr. Rajiv Ranjan, Dr. Michael Debabrata Patra and Shri Shaktikanta Das voted to keep the policy repo rate unchanged at 6.50 per cent. "Dr. Ashima Goyal and Prof. Jayanth R Varma voted to reduce the policy repo rate by 25 basis points," according to Monetary Policy Statement, 2024-25 Resolution of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) released by the central bank. Goyal, Varma and Bhide are external members on the MPC. Ranjan, Patra and Das are RBI officials. In the February 2024 and December 2023 MPC meetings, Varma had made a case for lowering the benchmark interest rate by 25