Anil Ambani, one of India's most powerful businessmen, will contest a seat in the country's upper house of parliament later this month, a statement from his office said on Wednesday.
Already at the top of the oil-focused Reliance group, India's largest conglomerate with $22 billion in annual sales, Ambani has put one of the country's most influential family names in the running for election to the 250-seat Rajya Sabha.
Ambani will run as an independent candidate from India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh in the north, where he has met regularly with leaders of the ruling Samajwadi Party.
Ambani will remain in his post as chairman and managing director of Reliance Energy, one of India's two main private-sector power utilities, which is setting up a gigantic 3,740-megawatt, gas-based power plant in Uttar Pradesh.
The Samajwadi Party, with backing among farmers, Muslims and lower castes in its impoverished home state, has assiduously cultivated a galaxy of businessmen and film stars for support.
Analysts said industrialists and celebrities are, in turn, drawn to the party for the political networking abilities of one of its top officials, Amar Singh.
"I don't think Anil's plan to contest is a prelude to a serious political career because the Ambanis have always been a powerful presence on the political scene," said Tony Joseph, editor of weekly magazine Business World and a long-time Reliance watcher."I think it's the personal relationships that he has with members of the Samajwadi Party. The interesting question is whether being closely tied to one political party will limit his manoeuvrability."
The election for 65 vacant spots in the Rajya Sabha is due later this month. State legislators elect 238 members, while the president nominates the remaining 12. Polls for the 545-seat lower house, or Lok Sabha, were completed last month.
Dhirubhai Ambani, Anil's late father, founded the Reliance group in 1958 to trade synthetic yarn, but it has grown into a huge conglomerate with interests including oil exploration, refining and petrochemicals, telecommunications and biotechnology.
"I think that Anil Ambani believes politics is one more way to further the cause of economic growth as opposed to merely corporate growth," said Dilip Cherian, a New Delhi-based lobbyist.
"Dhirubhai Ambani used to have this theory that if the country grows, Reliance can grow even faster."
Anil and elder brother Mukesh Ambani now run Reliance. Considered the more flamboyant of the two, the younger Ambani is married to a former film star and is still a long-distance runner in his mid-forties.
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