Thiruvananthapuram, May 4 (PTI) Rajeev Chandrasekhar has taken an unusual political path—moving from entrepreneur and technocrat to Member of Parliament, then Union Minister of State, and now president of the BJP’s Kerala unit.
A year ago, he was given a difficult task by the party’s national leadership—to make the BJP relevant in a state where it has long struggled to gain a foothold.
Since then, his tenure has seen a shift in the party’s fortunes in Kerala, beginning with the BJP wresting control of the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation from the CPI(M), which had held it for over four decades.
It was seen as an early signal that the party could expand beyond its traditional limits in the state.
In the Assembly elections, the gains, though modest, carried symbolic weight.
The BJP has now won three seats, opening its account in multiple constituencies after having no representation in the previous Assembly. Among them, Chandrasekhar also won.
He is now an MLA from the Nemom Assembly constituency, having defeated Kerala General Education Minister V. Sivankutty of the CPI(M) in a close contest.
For party workers, this marks a step forward in a long and difficult journey in Kerala politics.
Chandrasekhar’s approach—combining organisational push with a development-focused pitch—has begun to show results, even if the road ahead remains challenging.
Chandrasekhar, a computer science graduate from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, joined his father-in-law, T P G Nambiar’s BPL Group and founded BPL Mobile, one of India’s major telecom ventures.
He later sold his stake in the company to the Essar Group, which subsequently became Hutchison and then Vodafone.
He exited the telecom sector just before the 2G spectrum controversy emerged.
One of the poster boys of India’s telecom revolution, Chandrasekhar made significant investments in technology, media, hospitality, and entertainment sectors before being elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2006 as an independent MP from Karnataka.
Subsequently, he represented the state for multiple terms, initially as an independent MP with wide legislative support and later with BJP backing.
According to his website, he has served as a member of the Standing Committees on Information Technology and Defence, the Consultative Committees on Defence and Urban Development, and Select Committees on several key bills, including the GST Bill and the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill.
In 2021, Chandrasekhar, son of an Air Force officer, was made Union Minister of State in the second Narendra Modi government and was assigned the key portfolios of Electronics and Information Technology, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, and Jal Shakti.
He was also a BJP spokesperson before that.
When the BJP sought a third term at the Centre in 2024, Chandrasekhar was fielded from the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency and faced Congress candidate and incumbent Shashi Tharoor.
Though he managed to increase the BJP’s vote share in the constituency, he lost to Tharoor by a narrow margin of a little over 16,000 votes.
Subsequently, he was appointed state president of the BJP Kerala, and under his leadership, the party decisively won the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation in the 2025 local body polls in Kerala.
However, the party did not make significant gains in other local bodies, and there was no major increase in its overall vote share compared to the 2020 civic polls.
In 2026, he contested from the Nemom constituency in the Kerala Assembly elections held on April 9 and defeated the state General Education Minister V Sivankutty. PTI HMP TGB SSK
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