By Yash Jain | Priya Sheth Oct 21, 2019 5:43:10 PM IST (Updated)
Polling is underway for 288 Legislative Assembly seats in Maharashtra. As many as 3,239 candidates are in the fray. The main contest is between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Shiv Sena and Opposition Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
One of the main candidates is chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who is hoping to create history by becoming the first non-Congress head of a government to return to power for the second term in a row. Shiv Sena's Aditya Thackrey has made his electoral debut this time from Mumbai's Worli constituency.
In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Nilesh Shah, managing director and CEO of Envision Capital, Pawan Goenka, managing director of M&M and Adi Godrej, chairman of Godrej Group, discussed some of the urban and rural issues in Maharashtra.
Talking about PMC Bank, Shah said, “In terms of its impact of elections, I do not think it is a very big issue at all. I think it’s a much-localised issue, limited to some pockets of Mumbai. Therefore, I do not think this is a statewide or citywide issue and I do not think it will have any significant impact.”
About slowdown, Goenka said that the government and industries are working together to tackle the crisis. He is hopeful that by the end of Diwali, the slowdown will go away.
According to him, infrastructure development is the key issue in Maharashtra.
On the growth front, Godrej said, “We need to revive economic growth. One of the things that could be very useful is to reduce the level of personal income taxes.”
“Generally things are going reasonably well but we have to keep taking steps to increase economic growth because if economic growth does well, even if the government has spent some money, it will quickly recover because tax collection will grow,” Godrej added.