UP team flies to Bangalore to escape EC code

Among the council members, apart from Nilekani, only Anil Ambani and Ramdas Pai were present. Among the notable absentees were UP’s brand ambassador Amitabh Bachchan, Adi Godrej, Kumaramangalam Birla, K.V. Kamath and M.S. Banga.

The meeting was held at the invitation of Nilekani and on the agenda was a proposal to make Lucknow a centre of e-governance and hub of IT. Though Nilekani had called a team of senior officials to Bangalore for discussing the proposal, the UPDC think-tank changed gears and instead decided to hold its seventh meeting on the Infosys campus. With the model code in place for the by-elections, the council could not have announced any policy decision in Lucknow.

So, a high-powered team of state officials booked seats on the next available flight to Bangalore, though most of them did not have anything to do with the Development Council. Those who went to Bangalore included State Chief Secretary Vinod Kumar Mittal and Industrial Development Commissioner Ravi Mathur.