BJP's boatman in Kerala: Can Chandrasekhar steer the party to success?

His Malayalam isn’t especially good. Nor is he a particularly stirring orator in a state that has known legendary public speakers. He hasn’t spent much time in Kerala. Still Rajeev Chandrasekhar was appointed chief of the Kerala unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) earlier this week for precisely these reasons: That he would not be viewed as a threat, and would help unite a deeply faction-ridden unit of the party.

 

Pictures of Mr Chandrasekhar being felicitated for his new appointment show him in a blue kurta with what looks like a flying bird embroidered on the pocket — the bird bears a striking resemblance to the Indian Air Force’s (IAF’s) crest: A flying Himalayan eagle. This goes beyond symbolism. Mr Chandrasekhar calls himself a fauji brat who was born in Ahmedabad and grew up in cantonments all over India: Ladakh, Jorhat, and Delhi. His father, Air Commodore M K Chandrasekhar, was highly regarded in the IAF. His early exposure made Mr Chandrasekhar junior a devout devotee of the culture of the armed forces: He consistently fought battles of the defence services, whether it was to hold extensive discussions on One Rank One Pension (OROP) with the former defence minister, the late Manohar Parrikar, or something as lowly as better facilities for the nursing staff in the medical corps. He ensured that a Dakota DC-3 aircraft of 1940 vintage, a legendary transport aircraft destined for the scrapheap in the United Kingdom was bought by him, restored to flying condition, and gifted to the Indian Air Force in 2018. Mr Chandrasekhar says he could not countenance the fact that an aircraft that served India so well in the war of liberation for Bangladesh could be sold for scrap.

 

If Mr Chandrasekhar had followed his father in the armed forces, his life would have been very different. Instead, he opted to become an electrical engineer at the Manipal Institute of Technology, going on to the United States in 1984 for a postgraduate degree. He completed his degree in nine months and was spotted by Vinod Dham. He says it was Mr Dham’s influence that led him to Intel, where he became one of only three engineers who were CPU (central processing unit) architects, working on the next generation of chips. Every Intel 486 processor ever manufactured contains his initials, along with those of the 30 other engineers who worked on the project.

 

It was in the US that he met Anju, who was studying for an MBA and would later become his wife. Anju was the daughter of one of Kerala’s best-known and respected entrepreneurs, T P Gopalan Nambiar, or TPG, as he was called. Nambiar had begun life in Palakkad in 1963, manufacturing panel meters for the defence forces, but moved to Bangalore to protect his business — consumer electronics and communications — from the industry-unfriendly atmosphere in Kerala at the time. BPL Communications, the holding company for BPL Mobile Communications and BPL Cellular, was handed over to son-in-law Rajeev to run. Mr Chandrasekhar was among those who bid for cellular licences in 1991. By 2001, BPL Mobile was among the largest cellular operators in India. He then tried to do a deal by merging his company into a consortium. It didn’t work out. The war of GSM-CDMA (global satellite mobile vs code division multiple access) was a second blow.

 

In a way, Mr Chandrasekhar paid the price for being an early mover in a business that was at best perilous. His father-in-law and he had a difference of opinion, which they later resolved. But the business had to be sold for an undisclosed sum. When Mr Chandrasekhar exited BPL Mobile in 2005, the company was valued at $1.1 billion. The investment arm, Jupiter Capital, was founded the same year, with $100 million, with a vision to invest in emerging businesses in new markets. Among them was an investment in Asianet News Pvt Ltd. He resigned from the board in 2018, when he joined the BJP.

 

In 2006 and 2012, he served as an independent member of the Rajya Sabha. In 2018, after joining the BJP, he became Rajya Sabha member again. He played a crucial role in framing the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. The party trusted him enough to put him in charge of the Puducherry Assembly election in 2021, along with senior party colleague Nirmal Surana. The duo managed to install a National Democratic Alliance government in the Union Territory. Within months, Mr Chandrasekhar became minister in the Union Cabinet with the charge of skill development and electronics. He did not find a place in Narendra Modi’s third-term government because he had lost the election.

 

The experience of managing fractious boardrooms will come in handy for him as he seeks to rebuild the party in preparation for Assembly elections due May next year. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has a strong presence in Kerala. But the BJP, despite a growing vote share (19.21 per cent in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, an increase of 3.57 percentage points over 2019), seems unable to translate its presence in the state into seat share. Mr Chandrasekhar’s plan is to align this. He has just over a year.