People who left cosy jobs to join politics

It is just an alteration of role: from corporate honchos to change agents

Call it the pull of power or the love for politics, the 51-year-old banker tweeted: "relinquished role as country executive RBS India last night, to devote more time to governance & social issues that I am passionate about". In 2009, Meera Sanyal stunned political pundits and bankers alike by contesting south Mumbai constituency against Millind Deora, son of top Congress leader and former petroleum minister Murli Deora. She lost the polls but not the spirit.

It is not known whether Sanyal, a member of the Indian Liberal Group, would join any political party. The upcoming general elections in 2014 may see a record number of eminent executives, bureaucrats and police officers, both serving and retired, joining the electoral fray.

Here is a list of some other prominent faces who left their cosy jobs to join politics

Nirmala Sitaraman

One of the fore faces of the BJP Nirmala Sitaraman graduated from Seethalakshmi Ramaswami College, Tiruchirapalli in 1980 and obtained an M. Phil in International Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

She went on to work with Pricewaterhouse Coopers as a Senior Manager (research and analysis) and the BBC World Service before joining politics.


Dinesh Trivedi
                                                                                                                                                   

 

Former Union Railway Minister and Trinamool MP after his MBA in 1974, worked in 

 

Chicago for two years for the Detex 

 

Company, before returning to India, where he worked for a logistics provider Lee and Muirhead.

In 1984, he quit the job to

 

start his own air freight company based in Kolkata. He also started a consumer protection centre.

 

Naveen Jindal

 

Naveen Jindal is the Chairman of Jindal Power Limited, a subsidiary of JSPL, part of the $17 billion diversified O.P. Jindal

 

 

  Group.

Jindal topped the executive pay charts for listed companies in India with a package of Rs 73.42 crore for the last fiscal 2011-12, which grew by over Rs six crore from previous year.

Jyotiraditya Scindia

Born in the royal courtyards Jyotiraditya  majored in Economics at Harvard University, graduating in 1993 and interned with the UN Economic Development Cell and had the distinction of being the only under-graduate intern there.

He completed his M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2001. He went on to work at the financial helm of  Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley before deciding to contest from his father’s seat.

 

Sachin Pilot

After attaining his MBA from Wharton in 2002 he was employed with Delhi Bureau of British Broadcasting Corporation and then with American multinational corporation General Motors for two years.

Pilot also became the first Union minister of India to be commissioned as a regular officer in the Territorial Army.

Amit Mitra

The current FM of West Bengal obtained his masters from the Delhi School of Economics and further completed his PhD in 1978 from the prestigious Duke University in the USA. He went on to teach at the at Duke University and Franklin & Marshall College for over a decade before returning to India.


He received the prestigious Sears-Roebuck Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1990. He joined the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and rose to be its secretary-general.

 

Rajeev Shukla

Before entering politics, he was a reporter for Hindi daily Jansatta. Shukla held this job until 1985, when he became a special correspondent for Ravivar Magazine. As his skills grew, he became the anchorman for Rubaru, a highly-popular television news show.

The Observer group of newspapers hired him as a senior editor, and he continued in that job until being elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2000.

Vijay J Darda

Darda may not be a household name when it comes to politics but the three time Congress Rajya Sabha MP from Maharashtra has a powerful lineage in Marathi Journalism.

He is currently the Chairman and Editor In Chief of the most popular Marathi newspaper, Lokmat. 

 

Capt Gopinath

Before spearheading the foundation of the Deccan Airlines, India’s first low cost airline Capt Gopinath worked for 8 years  in the Indian Army, earning the rank of Captain and also fought in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

In 2009 Gopinath stood unsuccessfully as an independent candidate in the Lok Sabha elections.