ManiO Gentle and Tolerant Reader, fervent apologies for my long silence. And I shall pretend I didn’t hear those dismayed cries of “Aiyoo Muruga! He’s back!” and “What! We didn’t even notice your absence!” and “Have you considered a five-year silent penance in some remote Himalayan fastness like Bum La or Zanskar?
Because I know (or at least choose to believe) that these are but expressions of deep affection and endearment.
I write this seated amidst a swirl of packers & movers, enveloped in clouds of dust and debris, surrounded by the accumulated junk and associated memories of 33 years’ existence in Dilli that is Delhi, our beloved and cussed Rajdhani.
For I am at last leaving the Capital of India that is Bharat for good (thereby doing the Capital of India that is Bharat much good). I am relocating, to a place far south of the Vindhyas, where the air still contains traces of that rare but essential element named oxygen; where the Kaveri , unlike its cousin Yamuna, yet flows swift and full and harbours discernible life; where silence does not mean the incessant roars of vehicles and of Dilliwallahs blowing their fuses and their own trumpets; where words and phrases like ‘lakeside resort’ and ‘serene orchard’ and ‘forest view’ actually mean what they mean in lower case, and are not the names of NCR residential colonies in upper case offering spectacular views of swirling sewage canals, towering mountains of garbage, and endless concrete urban jungles respectively.
Yet I shall miss this great city, for all its callousness and coldness and countless crimes and cruelties.
More on that and much more, anon.
This rant is a mere throat-clearing statement of sorts; it is inspired by the assembly election results just in from Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
As always, during the next fortnight We, the Wee People, shall watch as our newly elected MLAs and their affiliated adherents and scoundrels rub their hands in glee at the prospects of gaining prodigious prosperity at public expense along with potential plunder from defecting (and indeed defecating) from one party to another. This practice among MLAs and MPs is also known as ‘horse trading’, despite protestations from horses and animal rights groups.
The neigh-sayers of DMK and ADMK and Trinamool Congress, of CPI(M) and Congress and BJP and all the rest of them may deny it; but the horse trading will be widespread, and be particularly intense in Tamil Nadu and Kerala where the Assemblies are more well hung than the elected MLAs. Doubtless in coming days, we will see many of these MLAs corralled into groups and flown off under strict surveillance into hotels and resorts far from their own states. And here, the MLAs will do what they do best: merrily junk Ideology for Iniquity and eagerly hunt for Singular Largesse from the Single Largest Party.
On ‘ongoing basis’ as we Bharatiyas like to say.
In this inglorious time, I recall—and repost below for your agony and entertainment—a potential business proposal that I came across from many years ago, for setting up a luxurious Horse Trading Resort for MLAs. I still believe it is a fine, financially viable business model whose time has come; and I urge the Government of India and all state governments to create enabling policies for financing such Horse Trading Resorts under schemes like Startup India, Pradhan Mantri Ghoda Yojana and the various Mukhya Mantri Ghoda Yojanas.
Jai Hind.
A ‘PILOT’ BUSINESS PROPOSAL: “VISHAAL GHUDASAAL” LUXURY RESORT FOR MLAs
[https://rpsubramanian.com/2020/08/05/a-pilot-proposal-vishaal-ghudasaal-luxury-resort-for-mlas/]
Dear Reader,
I present below the complete text of a weird yet strangely interesting ‘Pilot’ project proposal for bank finance, that seems to have been submitted to a certain ‘India Bulls & Ghotala Bank’. I found this document in an envelope lying on the pavement near Reserve Bank of India on Parliament Street, New Delhi.
Curiously, the document had distinct signs of dried horse droppings on all its pages.
I’m not sure whether to take it seriously or not…and I can’t seem to locate this India Bulls & Ghotala Bank either. What do you think I should do?
APPLICATION FOR SMALL BUSINESS LOAN—SOLE PROPRIETORSHIP
A. Personal Profile
1. Name of the applicant
MADHUSUDAN NIGONI PERIALINGAM
2. Residential address
Same as my business address (see 8 below)
3. Sex
Heterosexual; 2 to 3 times a week
4. Whether applicant belongs to SC/ST/EBC/OBC? [Attach copy of Caste Certificate as applicable]
Not sure. However, I can arrange to submit any number of SC/ST/EBC/OBC certificate(s) of any kind, as required by Bank
5. Technical qualifications
- 2018-19. Double Diploma in ‘Creative Accounting Practices’ and ‘Advanced Fabrication Techniques’ from Diamond Institute of Business & Fabrication Technology, an affiliate of Nirav Modi Global University, Antwerp. [Address: D.I.B.F.T. Delhi Campus, Room no. 163, 4th floor, next to A-1 Photo Studio, Laxminagar, New Delhi – 110092]
- 2016. Discharge-cum-Good-Conduct Certificate issued by Superintendent, Tihar Central Jail, Delhi on Authority of 3rd Additional Metropolitan Magistrate, Tis Hazari Courts, Delhi
- 1977. Certificate of Lifelong Unemployability issued by National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), New Delhi
6. Line of Activity/Business
HOSPITALITY SECTOR.
7. Experience
I have over 41 years’ experience in Hospitality Sector, as I have functioned as Certified and/or Institutionalized Inmate as well as Visiting Fellow in various public and private Mental Hospitals.
8. Business Address
Same as my residential address (see 2 above).
B. Project Outline
(Explain the gist of your project and how and why it is technically feasible and financially viable; detailed documents, excel-sheets, charts etc. may be annexed as required)
The proposed Project is a new venture in a hitherto-untapped realm of Hospitality Sector that promises assured, highly attractive financial returns on investment at minimal risk, while also serving public good by supporting welfare of elected People’s Representatives (MLAs) and thereby strengthening Democracy in India.
AIM
The project involves setting up and managing a Dedicated Luxury Horse Trading Resort for MLAs that will offer secluded, secure and supremely salubrious accommodation for MLAs from across the country who are being targeted and/or lured to defect to other political parties.
RATIONALE
1. Backdrop
The last few decades of India’s political history has witnessed an interesting phenomenon. In the wake of almost every state assembly election, the newly elected Members of the concerned Legislative Assemblies (i.e. MLAs) are frantically herded together by their respective party leaders and transferred swiftly to Hotels and Resorts (often located very far away), where the MLAs can be strictly monitored and prevented and/or protected from defecting to some other political parties. A few examples:
- Currently (August 2020), several score Congress MLAs in Rajasthan are suffering untold agonies in a 5-star Hotel in Jaipur where they have already been corralled for over two weeks.
- Karnataka, clear leader among all states, has seen its MLAs whisked off to resorts across India in 1983, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2019.
- In 2016, Uttarakhand MLAs were herded and flown into a resort in Jaipur
- In 2019, MLAs from Maharashtra were relocated to a resort in Jaipur. In 2002, the Maharashtra MLAs were spirited away to hotels in Bengaluru.
- Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh too are energetic players in the MLA-Hide-and-Seek game.
2. The Need & Opportunity
While the process of herding and physically transporting the MLAs has matured into a smooth and well-oiled machine (especially with the induction by all parties of fleets of private jet aircraft at public expense), it is very difficult to find enough rooms for all MLAs in any single Resort or Hotel. Usually, the MLAs have to rub shoulders (and occasionally, other limbs and appendages) with tourists and other kinds of aam aadmi riffraff in these 5–star establishments. This poses a grave security risk for all concerned, and especially endangers the concerned political party’s future. Also, the available Hotels and Resorts usually do not provide adequate security infrastructure for MLAs against snooping sting-seeking journalists, spies from rival parties and so forth. These and other factors cause great distress and hardship to the herded MLAs and their party Minders, as well as great financial distress and biological stress to senior party leaders. The overall effect is detrimental to a healthy Indian Democracy as envisaged by our Forefathers and Foremothers.
Clearly, there is a huge need as well as opportunity for setting up a dedicated Luxury Horse Trading Resort exclusively for MLAs in each and every state in India, where the MLAs can be provided with all the comfort and resources— physical, psychical, and moral—that they might need during such times of crisis.
PROPOSAL
The applicant proposes to set up a Dedicated Horse Trading Resort for MLAs in the National Capital Region of Delhi. The Resort, tentatively named “Vishaal Ghudashaal” (English: “Magnificent Horse-Stable” to convey a sense of stability as well as the pleasant atmosphere of horse-trading) will have a capacity to accommodate up to 84 MLAs at a time. It will provide 7-star facilities to its illustrious guests even while ensuring that a Z++ -level security ring prevents any unseemly, uninvited or untoward surveillance or intrusions by reporters, photographers and other outsiders that might disturb the tranquility of the guests.
The Resort is proposed to be set up as a ‘Pilot Venture‘ (inspired by recent events in Rajasthan following the exit of Shri Sachin Pilot, MLA, from the Congress party. In the long term, it is hoped that this Project can be scaled up to establish similar Resorts in other locations across the country.
Financial viability
[Detailed analyses attached at Annexures 1–18]
- Occupancy level of the Resort is critical to the financial viability of the Project. Here, the occupancy prospects are extremely encouraging, with as many as 10 states going to assembly polls between 2020–2023 to elect 1260 MLAs, a large proportion of whom are likely to seek refuge in the proposed Resort.
| Current Assembly lapses in | State | No. of MLA seats |
| 2020 December | Bihar | 243 |
| 2021 March | Assam | 126 |
| 2021 March | J & K | 87 |
| 2021 May | Kerala | 140 |
| 2022 March | Goa | 40 |
| 2022 March | Manipur | 60 |
| 2022 December | Gujarat | 182 |
| 2022 December | Himachal Pradesh | 68 |
| 2023 May | Karnataka | 224 |
| 2023 December | Chhattisgarh | 90 |
| Total | 1260 |
State Assembly elections due between 2020-2023
- Historical data and reports show that a Resort-bound MLA typically receives an incentive of Rs 10–20 crores for remaining loyal to his/her parent party or for switching loyalty to another party [e.g. see this report. This provides an assurance as to the liquidity of the guest-MLAs and their respective political parties, and thereby strengthens and assures the financial viability of the Project. [Thus, even at 50% occupancy in the proposed 84-room Resort for a few weeks at a time, the increased liquid assets of the 42 guests would be in the range of Rs 420–840 crores—please see Annexure 9(c)].
- The Project requires a capital investment of Rs 875 crores towards construction, finishing and commissioning of the Resort, including ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ infrastructure creation. To meet this amount, the applicant will contribute Rs 87 crores (10%), and seeks a term loan of Rs 788 crores (90%). The applicant will bring to bear his considerable expertise and experience in the Hospitality business to ensure the success of the venture.
- The Resort is expected to be completed and launched within 36 months of release of the Term Loan.
- The entire Term Loan of Rs 788 crores, along with interest, is projected to be repaid in full within a maximum of 12 months of launching the Resort.
- The Term Loan may be viewed as a ‘Revolving Fund’ that will mirror the ‘Revolving Door’ dynamics of MLA defections, and enable the financing of more such Resorts in the long term on a sustainable basis.
Credit facilities required
| Purpose | Amount | Repayment |
| Setting up and running one 84-room high-security Luxury Resort in NCR Region, to accommodate MLAs with high defection potential from all political parties across India | Term Loan of Rs 788 crores | Within 12 months of commissioning the Luxury Resort |
| Working Capital | Cash Credit of Rs 30 crores | On demand |
I/We certify that all information furnished by me/us is true; that I/We have no existing borrowing arrangements with IB&G Bank; that no legal action is currently being taken against me/us ; that I/We shall furnish all other information that may be required by you in connection with my/our application, that this may also be exchanged by you with any agency you may deem fit; and that you, your representatives, or any other agency as authorized by you, may, at any time, inspect/verify our assets, books of accounts, etc., in our factory and business premises.
Date: 28th July 2020
Place: Delhi
Wanderings and Wonderings 