JOIN USCitizens for Democracy, a forum comprising several IT industry leaders, on Monday took a dig at Nandan Nilekani for “taking a U-turn” on his ideals on deciding to contest as a Congress candidate.
The forum includes S Shanasundar, MD, ProSIM, P Narayana Bhatta, strategic advisor to IT Companies, S Srinath, CEO of PriSM Micro Sys and Sam Iyengar, former CEO of Aditya Birla Software Group, among others.
Addressing a press conference here, the IT industry representatives have called Nilekani “opportunistic and hypocritical” for going against what he proclaimed to stand for, including those thoughts expressed by him in ‘Imagining India’. Nandan Nilekani had opposed job reservations for the backward castes while at Infosys in 2009. However, today, he is talking in favour of private sector quotas, the members have pointed out.
In his book, he has referred to the Congress party’s approach as “ideologically driven, top-down approach, largely undisturbed by the demands and reactions of citizens.” How can he today contest as a candidate of the party, the members sought to know.
After having spent all his life in Karnataka, Nilekani proclaims to be learning Kannada now. Further they wanted to know how Nilekani could praise the statesmanship of Vajpayee and praise the BJP for telecom revolution in his book, while contesting from a party that was standing as an opponent to the leaders that were praised by him.