Once at Infosys, now in politics: Nilekani and V Balakrishnan

mangaloretoday.com / DHNS

Bangalore, March 10: When Bangalore votes for the national elections, its choices will include two top men who led one of the city’s best-known icons, Infosys.
 
Nandan Nilekani, the technology entrepreneur and co-founder of software giant Infosys who was tapped by the government to run its ambitious identity-recognition programme, is running for Bangalore South as a Congress candidate.

 

V Balakrishnan, the former Chief financial Officer or CFO of Infosys, has been announced today as the candidate from Bangalore Central for Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party or AAP.

The two men will take on old-school politicians in their constituencies. Mr Nilekani faces Ananth Kumar of the BJP, who has won the seat five times in a row. Mr Balakrishnan is up against PC Mohan of the BJP,  the incumbent parliamentarian.
 
Professionals have traditionally kept away from politics,  a field often seen as corrupt and dominated by political dynasties that have promoted their own people rather than outsiders.
 
But that has been changing over the past year, partly because of AAP, which stumped opponents and analysts when it performed strongly enough to form the government in Delhi in December’s state elections. Mr Kejriwal resigned as chief minister last month.
 
The Congress is trailing heavily in opinion polls and Rahul Gandhi, who is leading its campaign, is trying to shore up the party’s fortunes by bringing in new faces.
 
Mr Nilekani is a self-made billionaire - Forbes pegs his net worth as $1.3 billion or Rs. 8000 crore ($1= Rs. 61), making him the 50th-richest Indian. He is a graduate from the elite Indian Institute of Technology and made his money in technology and wrote the best-selling book "Imagining India". (Nandan Nilekani version 3.0: now, a politician)
 
In 2010, Mr Nilekani set up the unique identity (UIDAI) project, which by scanning people’s irises and fingerprints, hopes to bring the 1.2 billion (120 crore) population within the reach of government.

Mr Balakrishnan resigned from Infosys in December and joined the Aam Admi Party three weeks later.