Corporate honchos who failed to pass the political test

Leadership in the corporate sector — and the wealth that it generates — seems to have mattered little in the general elections. The richest candidate in the fray Nandan Nilekani, a co-founder of IT services bellwether Infosys, couldn’t match up to the experience of five-time winner (since 1996) Ananth Kumar of the BJP, losing by over 2 lakh votes. Nilekani’s former colleague, V Balakrishnan, a whole-time board member at Infosys till he joined the AAP, didn’t have much luck either, finishing a distant third behind Congress’ Rizwan Arshad and the BJP winner PC Mohan.

Former banker Meera Sanyal, who had also hitched her wagon to the AAP in this election, didn’t fare much better than when she contested in 2009 as an independent — she finished fourth, below Bala Nandgaonkar of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, Milind Deora of the Congress and the winner, Arvind Sawant of the Shiv Sena.

Perhaps the bigger surprise was the loss of two-time winner (in 2004 and 2009) from the Kurukshetra constituency in Haryana, Naveen Jindal. The chairman of Jindal Steel and Power and son of the late OP Jindal, a minister in the Haryana government, couldn’t complete a hattrick, finishing third behind Balbir Singh Saini of the Indian National Lok Dal and the winner Raj Kumar Saini of the BJP.

In Bihar, Anil Kumar Sharma, chairman of real estate group Amrapalli who contested on a Janata Dal (United) ticket, also finished third in the Jahanabad constituency, behind Surendra Prasad Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Arun Kumar of the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party — Sharma’s vote share was less than half of Yadav, and less than third of the winner. Arun Kumar had emerged triumphant in the 1999 polls too — on a Janata Dal (United) ticket.

The silver lining if there were one for the corporate sector was the victory of Jayadev Galla, managing director of the Amara Raja group, in Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, on a TDP ticket. Will his victory prompt other corporate honchos to get their feet wet in the waters of electoral politics, or will the experiences of Nilekani, Balakrishan et al convince them that the boardroom is a safer haven than the campaign trail?