Opinion Candidate Nilekani

Six months later,the ruling party is going through a reality check. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has done little to impress. At least half-a-dozen schemes that his government wanted to push through,such as the anti-superstition bill,have had to be pulled back. Dissidents have repeatedly targeted the chief minister for ignoring long-time party loyalists and,instead,creating and favouring a clique — those like him who entered the party relatively recently,as well as a set of younger partymen. Given all this and the pervading political mood,the same Congressmen have already modified their code to “15-16” with an additional “if” caveat — “if the party chooses the right candidates”.

For these and other reasons,the victory of the party’s probable Bangalore South candidate Nandan Nilekani is looking less like a “done deal”. Nilekani,whose name recently figured in rumours as a probable prime ministerial candidate of the Congress even before he can rightfully suffix “MP” to it,might well find that assigning an Aadhaar number to 1.2 billion Indians might be less of an exertion than winning the votes of a small fraction of those Indians in Bangalore to bag the Lok Sabha seat.

Nilekani,co-founder and former corporate executive of technology services firm Infosys and then Aadhaar chief with cabinet-level ranking in New Delhi for the past five years,has had a flying career so far. A Lok Sabha triumph from the prestigious Bangalore South parliamentary seat would be a befitting high in his life graph. If victorious and backed by a winning party,even bigger career spikes could follow.

In Karnataka,the Congress is just gathering its district-level leaders together to finalise the names of candidates who will contest the 2014 general elections. In some constituencies,the selection is pretty straightforward as the sitting MP will contest for another term. In others,several candidates are fighting tooth-and-nail to bag the nomination. In Bangalore South,a parliamentary constituency that the Congress has not won in four decades except once in the 1980s,the announcement of Nilekani’s candidature appears to be a mere formality.

But not so his victory. The man who made his name first as a CEO and then as a top-level technocrat in the government has not joined the Congress,publicly at least. He has little contact with the grassroots-level party cadres who are the foot soldiers in an election. Almost the first party-level contact that Nilekani has made to prepare for his election was a recent meeting with the Karnataka Congress chief G. Parameshwara,where he expressed interest in contesting from Bangalore South. This disconnect,despite his having the backing of the leadership in Delhi,might not equal an easy election victory.

There is also sure to be the Aam Aadmi Party factor,especially in Bangalore,where the newbie party is likely to contest all three constituencies. The AAP has a number of supporters in the technology industry who leaned in to bring about its successful debut in Delhi. This does not augur well for either Congress or BJP in a city that has among the highest number of young,first-time voters in the country. Because of this,in Bangalore South,there is likely to be an overlap of sentiment among voters who have to then choose between the AAP and Nilekani.

What will make Nilekani’s election from Bangalore more arduous is the fact that the city has so far received zero attention from Chief Minister Siddaramaiah who has never hidden his rural bias and,on occasion,amply conveyed his anti-English,anti-Bangalore slant. The chief minister has initiated several welfare schemes for rural Karnataka but the potholes in Bangalore remain unfilled. There is no visible effort by the government to improve infrastructure in India’s third-largest city. The neglect of Bangalore could manifest as anger against the Congress and its Lok Sabha candidates.

It may be too early to call the Bangalore South election,though. Nilekani has excelled in his assignments with his focused execution — he is now getting tutored in Kannada and is super-active on social networks — his phenomenal networking skills and his sharp mind. He could still succeed in energising Congress workers in Bangalore South and get them to back his election. If any non-politician could pull it off in Bangalore,it would have to be Nilekani.

Nilekani has excelled at reinventing himself at various points in his career. A book on re-imagining India and a sudden move to Delhi to assume a cabinet-level position came at unexpected points in his life. For those watching,Nilekani might spring yet another surprise.

saritha.rai@expressindia.com