By Varun Sood, ET Bureau | 13 Mar, 2014, 05.14PM IST
The resignation of Nilekani was expected as he has been named the Congress candidate for the 1.6-million strong Bangalore South constituency.
BANGALORE: Nandan Nilekani resigned as chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India on Thursday, leaving a question mark on the future of India's government's biggest exercise to issue a single identity card for each of its citizens.
"I am resigning as of today," Nandan said in an email reply to ET, adding "the government will decide who will hold the position next".
The resignation of Nilekani was expected as he has been named the Congress candidate for the 1.6-million strong Bangalore South constituency. The cofounder of Infosys had said that he would be leaving from the post once UID reaches out to 600 million people. Nandan told ET that UID had achieved the figure on March 9.
However, what could surprise many is that Nandan's resignation comes at a time when many believe the Government has not started a process to find a successor to him. It is unclear for now if the Government has started the process to find a successor to Nandan as the Bhartiya Janta Party has made it clear that if voted into power after the 2014 Federal elections, it would scrap the exercise.
UID comes under the Planning Comission headed by the Prime Minister. Planning Commission deputy chairman, Montek Singh Ahluwalia could not be reached for comments. Two other members of the Planning Commission, Arun Maira and Mihir Shah, when asked by ET if a search process has been started, declined comment.
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