Who Is IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, The Intel Engineer Who Founded BPL Mobile Before Joining Politics?

Rajeev Chandrasekhar began his career as an engineer in India, but left his job to study further in the US. There, he worked at Intel and was part of a groundbreaking project.

Meet Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. He has been a BJP MP in the Rajya Sabha for three terms, representing Karnataka. Before joining BJP in 2018, he was an Independent MP for 12 years. He also played key roles in Kerala and Karnataka elections as NDA’s vice-chairman and media head respectively. He began his career as an engineer in India, but left his job to study further in the US. There, he worked at Intel and was part of a groundbreaking project. He came back to India and became an entrepreneur. 

Chandrasekhar’s birthplace was Ahmedabad, Gujarat, but he moved around the country a lot as his father was an air force pilot. He had a diverse childhood in the 1960s and 1970s, travelling across his country and learning about different cultures.

Engineer And Entrepreneur

Chandrasekhar graduated from the Manipal Institute of Technology as an engineer in 1981. He left for United States for further studies obtained a Master’s degree in computer science from Illinois Institute of Chicago. Chandrasekhar’s life took off in 1985 when he joined Intel’s 486 project, a 42-byte processor, as part of the Silicon Valley team that was creating the foundations of the IT revolution. He was selected by Vinod Dham from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago.

He came back to India in 1991 to marry the daughter of BPL founder TPG Nambiar. Upon his return, Chandrasekhar founded BPL Mobile, which became the largest cellular network in the country. He sold his shares in BPL Mobile to the Essar group for $1.1 billion in 2005. He went on to establish Jupiter Capital, a private equity firm, in 2006 and served as its Chairman until 2014.

He is also a philanthropist and the founder-trustee of the Namma Bengaluru Foundation, a non-profit organization. He owns assets in media, hospitality, technology and entertainment sectors.

Strife With Father-In-Law TPG Nambiar

He has also been part of controversies. In 2004, TPG Nambiar, the BPL group patriarch, and his father-in-law sued Rajeev for mismanagement in the company and having irregularities in the ownership structure and asked the court to stop Chandrasekhar from selling or moving BPL Mobiles without his approval. Nambiar alleged that he had surreptitiously upped his stake in the company. In his defence, Chandrashekhar had said all the transactions had been above board. Both reached an out-of-court financial settlement over BPL Communications.