Tuesday Thoughts

In the last few days there have been certain developments in the  country, which I would like to share with you.

1 So at last BJP and Shiv Sena have sealed their alliance for Maharashtra Poll to be held on 21^st Oct, with BJP getting 162 seats (from this quota  they will be allotting seats to RPI (Athavale), RSP, Shiv Sangram & Rayat Kranti) and Sena getting 126 seats. So  where is insistence by Sena that they will contest half the seats ie 144 seats, so in the end they accepted that BJP is bigger force than Sena in entire Maharashtra.

Secondly for the first time a member from Thackeray family is going to contest the state elections. Shiv Sena yesterday also announced that Aditya Thackeray ( son of Shiv Sena President Udhav Thackeray) will contest from Worli constituency in South Mumbai. Shiv Sainiks have already  started a campaign for Aditya Thackeray to be next Chief Minister of Maharashtra. I foresee the problem in Aditya becoming CM-Firstly Sena is contesting less seat than BJP in this elections, so unless they win more number of seats as compared to BJP then only they will be in position to demand CM’s post for Aditya. Secondly their existing strength is 64 seats in assembly, to claim for CM’s post they will have to touch the figure of at least 100 seats to be on safer side, with a hope that BJP’s tally remain less than 100. Secondly everyone knows that they were reluctant partners in the govt, and most of the time they were acting as opposition party, so they will be in no position to reap the benefits of certain works carried out by the Govt, as they were opposing the same. It was only after Lok Sabha polls, where they were junior partner to BJP in Maharashtra, Sena realised that by remaining in alliance with BJP they can reap the benefits of  the popularity of PM Modi, CM Devendra Phadnavis and BJP President Amit Shah, otherwise their fate will be like 2014 assembly when both the parties went separate way and contested all seats individually, and what was the result BJP-124, and Sena- 64. So this time how many seats Sena will win from 126 seats they are going to contest, will be known on 24^th Oct when the result will be announced.

With BJP/Shiv Sena alliance finalised, the hopes for Congress/ NCP alliance wresting power looks very bleak. With both Congress and NCP at their lowest ebb, in my opinion it looks certain whether Shiv Sena likes it or not  Devendra Phadnavis  is going to become once again the CM of Maharashtra.

2 The situation on Punjab and Maharashtra Co Op Bank (PMC) is getting more confused, everyday you get to hear new story about the loans given by Bank to HDIL group, and personal loan to the main promoter of HDIL. When the scam become open what was the news that some 200+ Cr loans given to HDIL have turned bad, rest everything is OK with PMC. After 2 days the loan figure jumped to Rs 2500 Cr, and in the last few days  the rumours are floating in media/social media that the actual figure is Rs 6300 Cr. I do not know what is the truth, my only contention is why the RBI was sleeping over the years? A bank whose present deposit amount is Rs 11,000 Cr, can give the loan of such a big ammount to one group (HDIL), and RBI auditors could not detect this in Bank’s balance sheet. Why RBI failed to take timely action in this regard. If RBI had taken the action few years back then the account holders with PMC bank would not have suffered this, and their conditions would have been much  better then the present one.

You see the queues outside the bank branches to withdraw Rs 10,000 (which has been permitted by RBI to withdraw in 6 months). There is branch of PMC bank near my residence, and today morning I saw there were at least 50/60 people in the queue at 6 am and at 7.15 the queue was swelled to about 200 people. Now account holders are becoming panicky, they want to withdraw the max permissible amount, as they are afraid that after few days they may not get even this Rs 10,000. There have been news in the media/social media that people are becoming bankrupt without their own fault, although they had their money in the bank which they can not withdraw. There is news that so many poor/lower middle class families have no money left with them, and they do not know what to do now. So many people have no account with any other bank, and their entire savings/investments have been blocked, except the petty Rs 10,000. There is news in the print media that bank is facing problem to arrange hard cash, so that they can pay Rs 10,000 to account holders.

The future is very bleak for the account holders of PMC Bank because as each passing day is bringing new bad news, and many people are losing the hopes of getting any relief from PMC/RBI in near future.

So let us wait and watch

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

1^st Oct 2019