Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani launches ’Op Agile’ to win polls

mangaloretoday.com

Bangalore, Jan 15: These days, Nandan Nilekani is increasingly visible in casual attire at a whole range of public events, connecting with people from different walks of life. He has shed his corporate image and has reportedly engaged a Kannada tutor to brush up his oratory skills.

Given Nilekani’s reputation as a master strategist it is not surprising, more so when it is widely believed that chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India is to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Bangalore as a Congress candidate.

 

Though not confirmed, it is learnt that Nilekani has given a go-ahead to a four-pronged strategy, Operation Agile, to consolidate his position ahead of the elections and take the election battle into his opponent’s court. And Nilekani’s style is causing a lot of buzz.

On Sunday, when B.N. Vijaykumar - the BJP member of assembly from Jayanagar -joined Nilekani for a cycle rally titled Pledge2Vote aimed at creating awareness on voting, rumour mills in Bangalore had a field day.

After all, it is believed that Nilekani will take on BJP heavyweight H.N. Ananth Kumar who has been invincible in Bangalore South parliamentary segment.

Participating in such a mass awareness campaign was just one among the plethora of strategies that co-founder of Infosys Technologies is putting to use. With Operation Agile, Nilekani is all set to change the political landscape of Bangalore by unleashing an alternative to the traditional methods of connecting with the masses. Besides utilising public forums that are usually dominated by seasoned politicians, maximising the use of social / digital media and engaging people with fresh ideas are other objectives of the methodology.

With the launch of social / digital media blitzkrieg in favour of Nilekani, the campaign will aim at capturing issues plaguing the city, and will have an interactive and participatory approach to ensure that more number of people (voters) is involved in it, according to sources.

The third objective of Operation Agile is an initiative titled ’Ideas for Bangalore’ which seeks to engage youths and college students through Nilekani’s personal website. The fourth objective is a sort of voluntary initiative being launched by ITsector employees to complement Nilekani’s efforts. Titled ’Vote for Nandan Nilekani’, the voluntary group is expected to mobilise support for him once he is officially declared a Congress candidate for the polls.

"We are in a very interesting phase of politics in Karnataka with successful businessmen and entrepreneurs testing their luck in the elections. It does not matter how successful will Nandan be, but he has definitely caught the imagination of people, who considered politics as the last resort," pointed out a former chief minister.