Photographer's diary: IT honchos on campaign trail

Aam Aadmi Party's canditate V Balakrishnan participating in a public meeting in Shanti Nagar, Bangalore. He is contesting from Central Bangalore.

AAP's V. Balakrishnan (in blue shirt) and Arvind Kejriwal during a roadshow while campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections in Bangalore.

(From left): AAP's candidates Nina Nayak (Bangalore South), V Balakrishnan(Bangalore Central) and Prof. Babu Mathew (Bangalore North) during a public event in Bangalore.

The former chief financial officer at Infosys, V Balakrishnan, joined AAP on the first of January and subsequently announced it to the world on Twitter.

V Balakrishnan with his wife Chithra Balakrishnan. Bala used WhatsApp to send out personal messages this elections. "When you work in a corporate your stakeholders are defined, building consensus is tough in a diversified group," he says.

V Balakrishnan with his wife Chithra Balakrishnan and daughter Sneha. Bala's messaging is centred around corruption, change and swaraj (self-rule).

Bala only thought about getting into politics after he saw the Aam Aadmi Party take shape. It took him time to convince his wife and family because "in middle class families politics is not the right cause," he says

Nandan Nilekani at Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) headoffice in Bangalore. He is the Congress nominee from Bangalore South Lok Sabha seat in Karnataka.

While South Bangalore is largely an urban constituency, there are pockets where Nilekani is still relatively unknown.

Nandan Nilekani during his election campaign in Bangalore. "Campaigning is most emotionally and physically exhausting exercise. The closest that comes to this is the road show I did for my company (in the run up to the listing of Infosys on the NASDAQ) but even there we had weekends," he says, sounding a bit hoarse from speaking relentlessly for nearly 12 to 13 hours every day.

Nilekani literally begins his days at the crack of dawn, either at a park walking and chatting up with fellow Bangloreans or on a padyatra where he walks for several kilometers introducing himself to voters.

Nandan Nilekani, with former Karnataka CM and Union Minister S M Krishna during a road show at Jayanagar in Bangalore. During campaigning senior Congress leaders, such as Ramalinga Reddy ask for votes on Nilekani's enterprenurial and clean record.

Nilekani, who co-founded IT firm Infosys with Narayana Murthy and left it to head the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), is the wealthiest candidate so far in the entire election arena. He and his wife have assets worth Rs 7,700 crore.

Work on the campaign began almost six months ago even though his candidature was announced by the Indian National Congress only two months back.

Nilekani's campaign is primarily being managed by professionals in their twenties, many of whom have worked with blue chip companies such as Google and McKinsey.