Aditya Sinha: Good times, bad debts and 2018

Former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda who for the past 20 years has confined himself to Karnataka state politics called former liquor baron Vijay Mallya a son of the soil Just imagine the King of Achhe Din mdash sorry Good Times mdash affectionately stuffing his ragi dosa through the pouting lips of all those Kingfisher models Well King SonoftheSoil just demonstrated his nationalism by flying out of India on March 2 just before the banks to whom his nowdefunct Kingfisher Airlines owes Rs 90914 crore figure as of November 2015 moved court Neither Mallya will return nor will the debt get paid offVijay Mallyarsquos escape involves still unsolved mysteries The fact that he flew out First Class with armcandy has not been contested Did he or did he not check in seven pieces of heavy luggage He breezily dismisses this with ldquoI travel heavyrdquoThe Kingrsquos escape involves still unsolved mysteries The fact that he flew out First Class with armcandy has not been contested Did he or did he not check in seven pieces of heavy luggage He breezily dismisses this with ldquoI travel heavyrdquo to an interviewer This is corroborated by an executive assistant who on social media claimed that if Mallya were really fleeing with his belongings hersquod need an entire aircraftReading him in interviews or on Twitter is confusing ldquoif people are doubting the integrity of bank employees then why point the finger at merdquo he asks as if IDBI Bank which is under the CBIrsquos scanner for lending him Rs 900 crore had arbitrarily handed over to him a delicious pile of money even though all the warning signs were flashing red the illadvised 200708 purchase of Air Deccan and the skyrocketing oil prices at the time Or sample this ldquoNews reports that I must declare my assets Does that mean that Banks did not know my assets or look at my Parliamentary disclosuresrdquo No point trying to decipher that one I supposeIn his defence I must say that Mallya mdash who during his Twitter spree on March 11 said ldquoLet media bosses not forget help favours accommodation that I have provided over several years which are documented Now lies to gain TRPrdquo mdash has treated me nicely When I was the editor of a multiedition Southern newspaper he would every year send me a free Kingfisher calender mdash not an ordinary item that just any 40ish man could lay his calloused palms on mdash along with a personal note that began ldquoDear Sinhardquo The calendar included gorgeous photos of his mammoth yacht which incidentally was a few years back spotted off one of the beaches of a protected islands in the Andamans depositing loads of evidence of epicurean excess on the pristine white sand it also had photos of women And how could you not like his airline Every time you took off a video would come on in which Czech model Yana Gupta would coyly show you how to take off your beltAnd as policy analyst Mohan Guruswamy claimed on social media the original debt owed by Mallya was around R4000 crore the rest is interest and interest on interest Others claim that the accumulated losses are around R6000 crore Business is a risk It is unfortunate to hound a businessman solely because he took a gamble it is further unfair considering that Air India has racked up losses of R43000 crore and the bureaucrats who run it arenrsquot held accountable There are other industrialists who are in much heavier debt mdash the Ruia brothers and Anil Ambani come to mindMallyarsquos Twitter feed also points to a LinkedIn article which suggests through a chronological series of newspaper articles that Kingfisher Airlines was poised to get a R3000crore infusion from Ettihad Airways in 2012 through a 48percent stake That would have wiped out most of his debt that year A series of sudden regulatory punishments prevented the deal which eventually went to archrival Jet Airways whose ownership has often been speculated upon A powerful politicianrsquos name is bandied about Kingfisher also began to face its salary problems the very same time Incidentally a sad falling out with Mallyarsquos son also played out around this timeIf nothing else the comparison of Mallyarsquos escaping without paying with the 1615 farmer suicides in India last year is a false equivalence It is only of rhetorical value and even Deve Gowda champion of Karnatakarsquos farmers wouldnrsquot have called him a son of the soil otherwise The only ray of sunshine in this messy drama is that RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan and the BJP government have made clear their intent to clean up the banksrsquo balance sheets Also they have put the fear of god in the hearts of other lsquowillfulrsquo defaulters Thus our sonofthesoil politicians will have to find another crony capitalist for the big sums of money they need to contest the next election Incidentally in Karnataka that will be in 2018 when the BJP hopes to wipe out Deve Gowda and unseat the CongressJournalist and writer Aditya Sinha is the coauthor of Kashmir The Vajpayee Years He tweets autumnshade Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycom