Political parties, including the BJP, and the two Shiv Sena factions, are hiring political research and analysis agencies in the run-up to the BMC elections.
Even though the polls are going to be held only after the rains, the parties are not taking any chances and they want to fine-tune their strategies well in advance.
The stakes are high since the BMC is the richest civic body in the country. One of the companies that they have approached is Gateway Political Strategies, led by US-based Harshavardhan Ranshevre. Son of a retired assistant commissioner of police Sudhir Ranshevre, Harshvardhan is an expert in data crunching and analysis. He had earlier worked with psephologist Prashant Kishore and has honed his skills in the US.
Congress neta’s woes straight out of a film
For the past several months a Congress politician has been cursing himself for investing in what promised to be a lucrative deal. He had pumped in several crores in a cinema hall in a prime location of Mumbai, which was to be redeveloped into a multiplex-cum-mall. However, the project is facing legal issues.
Some years ago, a builder from Santa Cruz had agreed to take up the project, but then he faced liquidity problems.
So the Congress neta is running from pillar to post to recover his money. But the chances appear to be slim because now the police have got into the picture following complaints from smaller investors.
I-T sleuths not far away
He is one of the persons named in the Panama Papers. But he is yet to be summoned by the Income Tax sleuths for interrogation. Following the sensational disclosure of the names of several people involved in stashing away hundreds of crores in tax havens, the I-T department had started calling each of them one by one for interrogation. However, this particular person, who is connected with a fintech company, thinks he can escape because of his connections with a ruling party. However, it is learnt that it is only a matter of time before he is also summoned and asked to explain the millions he has salted away abroad.
Former Axis Bank president sitting pretty
A few years ago, there was a report in a pink daily that Axis Bank had asked its president and chief information officer Amit Sethi to resign. This followed a detailed complaint from a whistleblower about several technical issues. An internal inquiry had confirmed the whistleblower’s complaint substantially. But now there is no talk about it. In any case, Sethi, who is maintaining a low profile, is not particularly worried. He has put the whole episode behind him. He sold his Neo.bnk to Aurionpro for a cool $ 1.5 million. Aurionpro said they had done “due diligence” before entering into the deal with Sethi and had done the filings to the authorities concerned. Meanwhile, the globe-trotting Sethi has worked up more appetite.
Compiled by S Balakrishnan
