Rajeev Chandrasekhar to head Ficci from Jan

Come January next year and two of the country's leading industry chambers will be simultaneously headed - for six months at least - by industrialists who have cut their teeth in telecom.

Bharti Airtel boss Sunil Mittal already heads the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Former BPL Mobile boss Rajeev Chandrasekhar is slated to take over as Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) president.

In some ways, Mittal and Chandrasekhar, who have publicly aired divergent views on telecom issues like allocation of spectrum, represent the coming of age of this sunrise sector.

Chandrasekhar, 43, is expected to take over at Ficci's annual general meeting, next January. The Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha), representing Bangalore, he is currently the vice-president of Ficci.

His elevation to the post will come about due to the inability of N Srinivasan, vice-chairman and managing director of India Cements Ltd to take over. Srinivasan is also the treasurer of the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

Traditionally, it is the senior vice-president of Ficci who takes over as president. However, Ficci sources said Srinivasan was unable to take charge owing to family engagements.

"In that case Rajeev Chandrasekhar is most likely to become president," a chamber executive said. Chandrasekhar was not immediately available for comment.

This will also perhaps be one of the rare occasions in recent history that a serving MP heads an industry chamber like Ficci.

Mittal will step down from the CII president's post in the latter half of 2008, making way for ICICI boss K V Kamath, who is currently the vice-president.

Chandrasekhar was a senior technology professional in Silicon Valley between 1985 and 1991. In 1991, he returned to India and founded BPL Mobile three years later, subsequently winning the first mobile phone licence (for the Mumbai circle) awarded in India.

The company was acquired by Essar and other investors for around Rs 5,200 crore (Rs 52 billion).

Since July 2005, Chandrasekhar has been busy with his company Jupiter Capital, a venture development, management and investment company focusing on infrastructure, media and technology ventures.

His technology interests include digital signal processing, wireless systems, encryption and decryption technologies, and networked centric warfare systems, being pursued through a company called Jupiter Strategic Technologies Pvt Ltd.

As an MP, Chandrasekhar has raised a number of questions dealing with national security among other issues. Most recently, he raised the issue of the three service chiefs being subjected to security checks at airports.