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By:

Akhilesh Sinha

25 June 2025 at 2:53:54 pm

Congress tries a ‘third’ hand

New Delhi: The BJP latest manoeuvre in elevating Nitin Nabin as the party’s national working president has had consequences in Maharashtra’s two biggest cities - Mumbai and Pune. The result has left the Congress party in a curiously ambivalent mood: quietly pleased by the opportunities created, yet wary of the turbulence ahead. In Maharashtra, the immediate beneficiary of the BJP’s move is Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena. The BJP’s organisational signal has strengthened its hand in the forthcoming...

Congress tries a ‘third’ hand

New Delhi: The BJP latest manoeuvre in elevating Nitin Nabin as the party’s national working president has had consequences in Maharashtra’s two biggest cities - Mumbai and Pune. The result has left the Congress party in a curiously ambivalent mood: quietly pleased by the opportunities created, yet wary of the turbulence ahead. In Maharashtra, the immediate beneficiary of the BJP’s move is Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena. The BJP’s organisational signal has strengthened its hand in the forthcoming elections to the BMC, Asia’s richest civic body, and in Pune, the state’s second city. For Shinde, whose legitimacy still rests on a contentious split with the party founded by Bal Thackeray, any reinforcement from the BJP’s formidable machine is welcome. For Uddhav Thackeray, who leads the rival Shiv Sena (UBT), the message is ominous. His party, once the natural custodian of Marathi pride in Mumbai, now faces the prospect of being squeezed between a BJP-backed Sena on one side and a revived Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) led by his cousin, Raj Thackeray, on the other. Shotgun Alliance That pressure has forced Thackeray into an awkward embrace with his estranged cousin. A reunion of the Thackeray clans, long rumoured and often aborted, has unsettled Thackeray’s MVA ally - the Congress. Signals from the party’s high command suggest a calculated distancing from Shiv Sena (UBT), particularly in Mumbai, where Congress leaders are exploring arrangements with smaller parties rather than committing to a Thackeray-led front. In Pune, the party’s pragmatism is even more pronounced. Quiet efforts are under way to entice Ajit Pawar’s NCP, currently aligned with the BJP, into a tactical understanding for the civic polls. Control of the municipal corporation, even without ideological harmony, is the immediate prize. For the embattled Congress, the civic polls offer a chance to do two things at once. First, by keeping a degree of separation from the Uddhav–Raj combine, it can strengthen its own organisational sinews, which have atrophied after years of playing junior partner. Secondly, it can allow the BJP–Shinde Sena and the Thackeray cousins to polarise the Marathi vote between them, leaving Congress to position itself as a ‘third pole.’ Such a strategy is particularly tempting in Mumbai. A tie-up with outfits like Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) could help Congress consolidate minority, Dalit and tribal voters, constituencies it believes are more reliably mobilised without the ideological baggage of Thackeray’s Sena (UBT). Severing or loosening ties with Shiv Sena (UBT) would also simplify Congress’s messaging ahead of assembly elections elsewhere. In states such as West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, where polls loom next year, the party has historically preferred alliances that allow it to emphasise secular credentials and oppose the BJP without accommodating overtly Hindu nationalist partners. Mixed Signals The Congress’ internal signals, however, are mixed. When talk of a Thackeray reunion resurfaced, Maharashtra Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar publicly welcomed it, arguing that Raj Thackeray’s limited but distinct vote share could help consolidate Marathi sentiment. Mumbai Congress chief Varsha Gaikwad was more circumspect, hinting that alliances with parties prone to street-level militancy deserved scrutiny. Wadettiwar swiftly clarified that decisions would rest with the party’s senior leadership, underscoring the centralised nature of Congress’s calculus. In Pune, meanwhile, senior leaders are reportedly engaged in discreet conversations with Ajit Pawar, whose defection from his uncle Sharad Pawar’s NCP last year still reverberates through state politics. The outline of a broader strategy is becoming visible. Congress appears content to let the BJP and Shinde’s Sena draw on non-Marathi and anti-dynasty voters, the Thackerays appeal to wounded Marathi pride while it quietly rebuilds among minorities and lower-caste groups. Mumbai Approach Mumbai’s demography lends some plausibility to this approach. Alongside its Marathi core, the city hosts millions of migrants from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand, a constituency that has increasingly gravitated towards the BJP. Raj Thackeray’s strident rhetoric against North Indians, once electorally potent, now risks narrowing his appeal and complicating Uddhav Thackeray’s efforts to broaden his base. None of this guarantees success for Congress. Playing the ‘third pole’ is a delicate art. Yet, the Congress, struggling for survival, has few illusions about sweeping victories. Its aim, for now, is more modest – it is to survive, to remain relevant, and to exploit the cracks opened by its rivals’ rivalries. In Maharashtra’s civic chessboard, that may be advantage enough.

Who Should Manage Our Investments?

Easy access to markets has encouraged confidence, but sustained investing success still depends on discipline, process and emotional control.

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Every market cycle revives a familiar question: should individuals manage their own investments, or should they entrust the task to professionals? The debate appears straightforward. Markets are open, information is widely available, and technology has put trading platforms into every pocket. If professional fund managers work with largely public data, why should investors not attempt to replicate the process themselves? The answer lies not in intelligence, but in temperament, process, and consistency.


Indian retail investors today are more engaged than ever. Demat accounts have crossed 19 crore. SIP inflows regularly exceed Rs.25,000 crore a month, and financial conversations have moved from boardrooms to tea stalls and smartphones. Confidence is high, participation is broad, and curiosity is genuine. Some enjoy early success, which reinforces confidence and creates the impression that professional management is optional. History, however, shows that markets eventually test conviction, often when confidence peaks.


Temperament Matters

A common misunderstanding is equating professional investing with stock picking or market timing. In reality, professional management focuses on risk control, capital preservation during downturns, and the ability to deliver steady, risk-adjusted returns across market cycles. Outperformance is a consequence of process, not prediction.


Professionals operate within structured frameworks. Investment ideas are researched, debated, documented, and reviewed. Portfolios are diversified deliberately, not defensively, because concentration can undo years of gains in a single adverse phase. Mistakes are analysed, not rationalised. Individual investors, by contrast, often invest alone, guided by instinct, headlines, and selective memory. Their decisions are shaped less by repeatable method than by recent experience, which markets are adept at distorting.


Consider the weekend cricketer who believes he could survive a full Test series. He may have talent and may even score a few runs, but consistency against international bowling demands training, systems, and stamina. Markets operate the same way. A handful of successful trades feel like skill; losses are blamed on timing or bad luck. This selective recall flatters confidence but weakens judgement.


Behavioural pressures compound the problem. Fear and greed affect all participants, but individual investors face them without institutional safeguards. Sharp corrections provoke panic selling, while prolonged rallies encourage overexposure. Professional investors experience the same emotions, but predefined processes impose discipline. For individuals, emotion often becomes an unrecognised cost.


Hidden Frictions

Time is another underestimated factor. Effective investing requires continuous research, earnings analysis, macro assessment, and portfolio review. This demands sustained attention. For salaried professionals and entrepreneurs, the opportunity cost of such engagement is substantial, though rarely acknowledged. A lawyer or doctor spending weekends tracking stock movements may be diverting time from the very skill that generates primary income. 


Then come the silent drags on performance. Transaction costs, taxes, and frequent portfolio churn quietly erode returns. Many investors remember headline gains but overlook the cumulative impact of small, repeated mistakes. Professional fund performance in India is reported after expenses, disclosures are regulated by SEBI, and portfolio changes are monitored. Individual investors often measure success before frictional costs intervene.


None of this implies that individual investing is misguided. A minority of investors possess the discipline, analytical skill, and emotional control to outperform consistently. However, the benchmark is long-term, risk-adjusted performance, not isolated wins. One successful stock does not constitute an investment strategy.


The more relevant question, therefore, is not whether one can invest independently, but whether one can do so better than trained professionals over many years. If the answer is demonstrably yes, self-management is justified. If the answer is uncertain, delegation is not a failure of competence but an exercise in judgement.


In most areas of life, professional expertise is accepted without hesitation. We trust pilots, doctors, and engineers because the cost of error is high. Financial decisions carry similar consequences. The objective of investing is not activity or excitement, but steady progress towards long-term financial goals.


Markets reward discipline more reliably than brilliance, and punish overconfidence more severely than ignorance. In that context, the most effective investors may not be those who act the most, but those who recognise the limits of their advantage.  Often, the smartest financial decision is recognising who is better equipped to make it.


(The writer is a retired banker and author of ‘Money Does Matter.’ Views personal.)

 


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