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Naidu only CM who can make PowerPoint presentation, quips Mahajan

Syed Amin Jafri in Hyderabad

Union Communications and Information Technology Minister Pramod Mahajan on Monday fondly called Chandrababu Naidu "the one and only Chief Minister in the country who can make a PowerPoint presentation. He is the only CM who brought the IT revolution in politics."

Mahajan, in his keynote address at the Nasscom Indian IT and ITES Strategy Summit here on Monday, said that Hyderabad was the ideal place for the release of the Nasscom-McKinsey Study 2002 on ITES because "I can present the report to such a CM who can read it and implement it."

"My father was born here. I was born here. My daughter is married here. But Chandrababu Naidu need not worry. I am not going to come into Andhra politics as another Telugu bidda (son)," he quipped.

Mahajan said that it was Naidu who made every politician to talk about IT " but I don't say to understand about IT."

Referring to IT parks and the politicians' knowledge about IT, he remarked "most of them don't know that they (IT parks) don't have trees. Most of them think of IT parks as Gandhi-Nehru parks. The IT-YT issue has come to my constituency (portfolio)."

If politicians were really excited about any subject, it was necessary to make them talk about it. Chandrababu Naidu has excited everyone to talk about it. But it was late Rajiv Gandhi who had talked about IT long ago.

"Only problem was that he (Rajiv Gandhi) was ahead of his time. He was ridiculed as a computer boy."

He said: "The late Winston Churchill had identified three most difficult things in life: like climbing a wall which is leaning towards you, kissing a woman who is leaning away from you and talking to an audience who knows more than you. Perhaps, Churchill never knew Indian ministers. That is why he never wanted to give Independence to India."

Stating that the Andhra government had first retained McKinsey as consultants for drafting the Vision-2020 document for the state, he quipped: "If Chandrababu Naidu employs somebody, there is no reason why we should not employ them as consultants."

He said that after the Nasscom-McKinsey came up with their first report on Indian IT sector in the year 2000, there was global slowdown in the IT sector. "I don't know if there is any connection between the two," he said, amidst laughter.

He said that for this reason, the "IT Pawar" had expressed some doubts. "No. I am not referring to my political Pawar," he quipped.

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