Narayana Murthy urged to join politics

Infosys chairman N R Narayana Murthy may still be smarting from a spat with a politician, but he was on Saturday asked by Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew to enter politics to "transform India."

"If a core group of people like you get into Parliament and make a difference to one or two ministries, you can transform India," Yew told Murthy during an interaction with the Infosys top brass in Bangalore.

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He said: "Your philosophy of leadership, management and transparency should not be confined to the corporate sector alone and must extend to the government and the public services."

Yew's suggestion comes close on the heels of Murthy, one of India's most celebrated corporate heads, resigning as head of the Bangalore International Airport Ltd after former prime minister H D Deve Gowda raised doubts about his contribution to the project.

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Gowda, whose JD(S) is a coalition partner in the Karnataka government, had lashed out at the IT industry and the Infosys chairman in particular after what he called "attempts to destabilise the government."

But to a question from Yew on when he would join politics, Murthy said: "Managing a corporation which is homogenous is different from managing a diverse country like India. It is a different ball game altogether."

Later when reporters asked him about his entering politics, the Infosys chief mentor appealed to the press not to "play up the controversy and check facts and figures before writing."