Financial markets shut today due to Assembly polls; here is what else is unavailable

Domestic financial markets, spanning equities and bonds, remained shut on Wednesday as polling was underway for the Maharashtra Assembly election. Besides, private as well as public sector banks were closed in a number of regions in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, another state where voters were in the process of casting their ballots for the Assembly polls.

Stock exchanges BSE and NSE were set to resume trade normally the next day, November 21, and trading at commodity derivatives exchange MCX was scheduled to commence for the evening session on Wednesday itself. MCX conducts trading in two sessions: morning (9 am to 5 pm) and evening (5 pm to 11:30/11:55 pm).

Maharashtra and Jharkhand Assembly elections

Voting was underway amid tight security for the 288 Assembly constituencies in Maharasthra and 38 seats in the second and final phase of polling in Jharkhand. Additionally, electors were also in the process of casting their votes for by-polls to 15 Assembly seats spread across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Uttarakhand. Here is a summary of locations where banks were shut due to election-related activities on November 20:

1. Maharashtra: Belapur, Mumbai, and Nagpur
2. Uttar Pradesh: Kanpur

The RBI had announced a holiday due to the general elections in several states, including Maharashtra, UP and Jharkhand.

As many as 30 cities or regions were listed as not affected by the elections, as per the RBI’s holiday calendar. These locations included Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jaipur, Jammu, Kolkata, Delhi, Shimla, Srinagar and Thiruvananthapuram. Here is the list:

• Agartala
• Ahmedabad
• Aizawl
• Bengaluru
• Bhopal
• Bhubaneswar
• Chandigarh
• Chennai
• Dehradun
• Gangtok
• Guwahati
• Hyderabad
• Imphal
• Itanagar
• Jaipur
• Jammu
• Kochi
• Kohima
• Kolkata
• Lucknow
• New Delhi
• Panaji
• Patna
• Raipur
• Ranchi
• Shillong
• Shimla
• Srinagar
• Thiruvananthapuram