The election fever was in full swing for the last couple of months and the recession fever for a while longer. Though the recession has initially germinated in the US of A, it has spread far and wide to almost every country and sector you can think of (Some sectors like condoms will be unaffected. People will have sex no matter what :D).
Anyway getting back to the point, the elections are done and the counting too. And the verdict is what most were expecting it to be despite the notion that it would be a tough fight: Congress came up trumps. Not surprising considering that people don’t want some small alliances leading from the front and then breaking up in no time and a re-election like the disasters of the I.K.Gujral and Deve Gowda times. Good, bad or ugly, the Congress is India’s oldest party and has been in power for many more terms than any other party in India. So most would trust it to be a stable government even in unstable times.
The strange thing is that today, barely two days after the Congress won the general elections the BSE Sensex flew up by 2099 points with a staggering 17.34% rise and hit two upper circuit limits. Put simply, trading in the market has been halted for the entire day. And the sectors which were consistently the worst hit in recent times have soared with flying colours namely, infrastructure and realty.
I knew the influence and power of politics on the economies of the world. But the current phenomenon if I may call it so, has been unheard of in the history of the 179 year old BSE, South Asia’s largest stock exchange with over 4700 listed companies.
Whether the new government reviews critical fiscal policies and keeps the BSE riding high on FDI and FII and steers India out of the current global subprime crisis, largely remains a mystery.
As of now we just know 2 things:
1) This Government will last its term like it did from 2004-2009.
2) The BSE has witnessed a historical phenomenon.
Reason enough to celebrate in the grim times we’ve faced in the recent past, I’d say.
Lunacy Simplified 