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Nandan Nilekani, chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), might be considering taking a plunge into electoral politics by joining the Congress.
According to sources in the know, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi is keen that Nilekani join the party and contest the coming Lok Sabha elections from the Bangalore South constituency. Nilekani declined to comment, saying "it is speculative". But Congress sources said he had been getting feelers from the party about its interest in fielding him as a candidate. The party wants to leverage on the clean image of Nilekani, also co-founder of India's second-largest IT services company, Infosys.
"Since the government has already given Nilekani a platform (UIDAI) and he has proved himself quite well, the Congress may want to leverage on this in the coming general elections. Apart from a being a technocrat, he also commands good popularity in Bangalore, the city that headquarters the company he co-founded with six others some 32 years ago," a senior industry source said.
In June 2009, Nilekani quit Infosys to join UIDAI as its chairman. He was also given the rank of a cabinet minister. Bangalore South, considered BJP bastion, is currently represented by party heavyweight Ananth Kumar.
However, BJP is learnt to be planning to field former Indian cricket player Anil Kumble from the seat this time, as Kumar has decided to focus more on election campaigning. A spokesperson for Kumble declined to comment.
Earlier, the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) had set up a committee to nominate prospective candidates for all the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state. The committee has already proposed the names for 20 constituencies to the party high-command but has not yet finalised the name for the Bangalore South constituency. However, a few names doing the rounds in the party for this constituency include those of former chief minister S M Krishna, Rajeev Gowda (son of former Assembly speaker M V Venkatappa) and U B Venkatesh.
However, sources close to Krishna say he may not be interested in contesting the elections and, considering his age, might prefer to try for the Rajya Sabha.
