Lead India

On August 15, 2007, the Times of India, the country’s leading daily, launched a talent search with the goal of finding a leader for India – a man or a woman with the ability to romance the nation with exceptional talent, capability, determination and a vision of what political leadership in this country should be. The initiative to change governance through this hunt was called Lead India.

The Lead India campaign was spread across eight cities (Ahmedabad, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Pune, Kolkata and Mumbai) and had prominent ambassadors from Amitabh Bachchan to Sunil Mittal.

RK Misra rose from 32,286 applicants who participated in the process to become the final winner on February 9, 2008. The city-level selection process involved debates, discussions, jury interviews, audience polls and sms votes. Eight city finalists were chosen after a grueling 3-month process.

The national finals of Lead India involved 10 rounds of televised debates, discussion, time bound public tasks and jury interviews along with sms votes from across the nation. On the way, Misra was grilled on national television by a number of outstanding personalities: Kiran Bedi, industrialist Kumaramangalam Birla, actor Akshay Kumar, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, film maker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, actor Ajay Devgan, ad man Piyush Pandey, writer and former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Dr. Shashi Tharoor, industrialist Shashi Ruia, actor Anil Kapoor, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi, BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad, editor Dina Vakil, Isha Foundation founder Sadhguru Vasudev, ICICI CEO & MD KV Kamath, Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley, Right to Information activist Arvind Kejriwal, Solicitor-General of India Goolam E Vahanvati and senior Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh.

When RK Misra of Bangalore emerged as the choice of the judges, the nation (which voted for him via SMS) and guests on the show, it was former President Dr Abdul Kalam who congratulated him. As it happened, Dr Kalam had launched a campaign with the same name – Lead India – in 2000 as President of the country!

Lead India was the start of a journey – for RK Misra as well as the nation. This journey continues with ‘Change India’ and you as the driving force behind the movement.