Rajeev, then the Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, lost to veteran Congress leader Shashi Tharoor by 16,077 votes in a fiercely contested election. Yet there is no denying that he put up a spirited fight. The defeat saw him almost signing off from electoral politics.
Call it destiny—or perhaps someone in the BJP’s think tank read the shortpost.in story (just joking). In March 2025, Rajeev was appointed president of the Keralam BJP. Under his leadership, the BJP made significant gains in the 2026 Assembly elections, winning three seats and registering what many describe as a saffron surge in the state. His Lok Sabha defeat unexpectedly opened up a new political opportunity for him. Perhaps it also marked the emergence of a future chief ministerial contender in Keralam.
As a business journalist, I have had the opportunity to meet Rajeev a couple of times over the years. The first meeting was sometime in the 1990s, when he was in Mumbai with his brother-in-law, Ajit Nambiar, for an informal interaction with about 15 to 20 journalists over drinks. If memory serves me right, the gathering was held in the Regal Room at the Oberoi Towers. The chairs were arranged in a circle, encouraging conversation.
During the interaction, Rajeev spoke passionately about BPL-Sanyo’s products, particularly its televisions and refrigerators. By the end of the evening, I was completely sold. I not only bought both products but also persuaded a couple of friends and neighbours to do the same.
He was a persuasive communicator. His command of language, articulation, conviction and logic could win over almost anyone. Technology was clearly part of his DNA. He came across as intensely focused and deeply passionate. That was my first impression of him.
Thereafter, he moved out of the white-goods business and entered the telecom sector in 1994 with the launch of BPL Mobile. However, in July 2005, finding the going increasingly tough, he sold his 64% stake in BPL Mobile to the Ruias of the Essar Group for $1.1 bn.
After exiting BPL Mobile, Rajeev founded Jupiter Capital in 2005. The investment firm manages assets across technology, media, hospitality and entertainment. In 2006, he acquired a majority stake in Asianet Communications. Two years later, he entered into a joint venture with News Corp, leading to the formation of Asianet Star Communications.
Asianet News Network Pvt Ltd, incorporated in May 2008 under his leadership, became the holding company for his media ventures, including Asianet News, Asianet Suvarna News and the digital portal Newsable. He was also an early investor in Arnab Goswami’s Republic Network. However, he exited the venture in 2019 to comply with parliamentary disclosure norms.
Sometime in 2005, I met Rajeev for a book project on BPL Mobile at his Mumbai office in Matunga West. The area was then home to the famous Badal-Bijlee-Barkha theatre. Today, those iconic single-screen cinemas have been demolished, and a Movie Time Star multiplex stands in its place.
Rajeev spent nearly two hours explaining the telecom business model to me. He said that in the early days, mobile operators positioned it as a product for the affluent because call charges were prohibitively expensive at Rs 16.80 per minute. Print advertisements typically featured businessmen standing by a poolside, talking on their mobile phones. It was Dhirubhai Ambani who disrupted the telecom sector by bringing down the cost of a mobile call to the price of a postcard—Re 1. Thanks to that disruption, India today has more than 1.2 billion mobile subscribers.
Back to Rajeev. As I walked out of his cabin two hours later, I felt enriched by the conversation. There were countless takeaways. I learnt a great deal about the telecom industry, its economics, business models and ARPU. During those two hours, he spoke almost non-stop. His articulation, choice of words and clarity of thought were exceptional. It seemed as though he had recorded every detail in his mind and simply pressed an invisible play button. Impressive and enviable were the two words that immediately came to mind.
Unfortunately, the book never saw the light of day. I still hope to reconnect with Rajeev someday and revive the project.
I met him again at S Gurumurthy’s son’s wedding in Chennai in either 2006 or 2007, where we exchanged pleasantries.
Another interesting incident involving Rajeev comes to mind. Around 2000-01, when I was Executive Editor of Business India, I received a call from media strategist Ravi Shyam, who later became one of my closest friends. Sadly, he passed away during the Covid-19 pandemic.
At the time, Ravi was representing the UK-based private equity investor CDC (now Actis). Apparently, CDC and AIG were unhappy with Rajeev because they felt they had not been kept informed about a major merger he was planning. The poster boy of India’s telecom industry stitched together a complex deal to keep BPL Mobile afloat. The proposal involved bringing together BPL, Birla-AT&T and the Tatas—popularly referred to as BATATA in those days—in a cellular marriage that would create a Rs 10,000-crore telecom giant.
However, CDC and AIG threw a spanner in the works and approached an international court to stop the merger. The setback proved costly for BPL Mobile. In 2002, Rajeev’s MoU with Idea Cellular expired, effectively ending the proposed alliance.
To cut a long story short, Ravi Shyam was making a strong case for CDC—the usual PR and advocacy exercise. He asked whether I would be interested in pursuing a story that, in my view, was clearly critical of Rajeev Chandrasekhar. Without batting an eyelid, I replied matter-of-factly: “I know my history well. In a fight between an Indian and a Britisher, I will support Rajeev Chandrasekhar.”
Then, I joined CNBC-TV18 in 2005 and curated a number of weekend programmes. I always ensured that whenever we organised a major event on technology or information technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar was among the invitees.
Come to think of it, he has never disappointed journalists. He is a veritable fund of information. Like Mohandas Pai, he can speak on virtually any subject under the sun with authority, clarity and, more importantly, facts and figures to back his arguments. He is resilient, a born fighter with a clear vision. More importantly, he never gives up.
That fighting spirit was evident in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections against Congress leader Shashi Tharoor. In the 2019 election, Tharoor had won by a margin of 99,989 votes. In 2024, however, although he secured a fourth consecutive victory, his winning margin was reduced to just 16,077 votes, indicating that Rajeev had mounted a formidable challenge.
Likewise, in the 2026 Keralam Assembly elections, Rajeev defeated veteran CPI(M) leader and minister V Sivankutty by a margin of 4,978 votes, securing 57,192 votes. The victory further strengthened his credentials as a political leader capable of expanding the BJP’s footprint in the state.
Rajeev’s father served in the Indian Air Force, which meant the family moved frequently from one military station to another. As a result, Rajeev studied in several military schools. After completing his schooling, he joined Manipal Engineering College. During his college days, he was part of a biker gang known as the Junk Sangh. Members of the group would ride from Manipal to Bengaluru, a journey that took nearly seven hours, to attend concerts featuring bands such as Wishbone Ash, Uriah Heep and other ageing British rock groups.
After graduating in electronics engineering from Manipal, Rajeev moved to the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago in 1984 for a postgraduate degree. He completed the programme in just nine months and entered the job market. Acting on his father’s advice, he met Vinod Dham, the legendary engineer widely regarded as the architect of the Pentium chip.
At Intel, Rajeev rose quickly through the ranks and became one of the three engineers involved in designing the company’s next generation of processors. Even today, Intel 486 processors carry his initials alongside those of about 30 other engineers who worked on the project. His Bengaluru office houses several Intel memorabilia, including a framed poster of the 386 processor bearing the caption: “One picture that’s worth 16.3 million words.”
While working at Intel, Rajeev met Anju, who was pursuing an MBA in Boston. Her father, TPG Nambiar, was the founder-promoter of consumer electronics major BPL Ltd. TAfter the wedding in 1991, they were preparing to return to the United States when a chance meeting—once again at his father’s urging—with Rajesh Pilot, the communications minister in the P V Narasimha Rao government, changed the course of his life. Pilot advised Rajeev to stay back and build a business in India. The rest, as they say, is history.
This 62-year-old technocrat, businessman and politician possesses the experience, vision and resilience required to aspire for Keralam’s highest political office. Whether he ultimately becomes chief minister will depend on many factors, including the BJP’s ability to expand its presence in the state. But few would dispute that he has emerged as one of the party’s most important faces in Kerala. For now, all he needs is for Lady Luck to smile on him.