People seem to be quite happy that the natural party of government is set to take over.
Ramesh Shah, a stockbroker at the Bombay Stock Exchange, had a foreboding that some bad news awaited him this morning but he never expected that Asia’s oldest stock exchange would shut down its operations for three hours and his earnings would take a huge dip.
“I knew that this new government will not be market-friendly, but I never thought that something this bad will happen to the stock markets. (Prime Minister-designate) Sonia Gandhi is bad for our country and also for the economy. Sonia Gandhi and all her allies have no economic programme,” says Ramesh.
“Everyone is panicking here with communist leaders making statements like they will disband the divestment ministry and not let labour reforms go through,” Ramesh rues.
Asked how much money he lost, his broker friend Asmit Desai intervenes and says, “He has lost ‘ek khoka’ (Rs 1 crore or Rs 10 million) and I have lost around Rs 50 lakh (Rs 5 million).”
“This is all because of Sonia Gandhi. She has no sense of business and economics. She should have laid common minimum programme first and only then allowed these senseless Left leaders speak about economic policies. Because of their statements, FIIs (foreign institutional investors) are running away from the market. Both of us have lost money in blue chip companies like ONGC and Infosys,” laments Desai.
All this without her having said a word about economic policy herself. lol